The  ITORLD  of 
WONDERFUL  REALITY 


Books  By  E.  Temple  Thurston 

The  City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense 

The  World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Enchantment 

The  Five-Barred  Gate 

The  Passionate  Crime 

Achievement 

Richard  Furlong 

The  Antagonists 

The  Open  Window 

The  Apple  of  Eden 

Traffic 

The  Realist 

The  Evolution  of  Katherine 

Mirage 

Sally  Bishop 

The  Greatest  Wish  in  the  World 

The  Patchwork  Papers 

The  Garden  of  Resurrection 

The  Flower  of  Gloster 

Thirteen 


l80-D 


Th  ^WORLD  of 
WONDERFUL 
REALITY 


BY 


It  ^ 

!'  turn 


\l 


E.  TEMPLE  THURSTON 

AUTHOR  OF 

"THE  CITY  or  BEAUTIFUL  NONSENSE" 


I    1 


D.APPLETONAND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  1919 


COPYRIGHT,    1919,   BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


FEINTED  IN  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


To 

MY  WIFE 


2227312 


MY  DEAR, 

Ten  years  have  raced  and  lingered  since  first  I  began  in  my 
small  room  over  the  tobacconist's  shop  to  write  "The  City  of 
Beautiful  Nonsense."  We  have  seen  many  sized  rooms  since 
then  and  doubtless  have  learnt  much  of  each  other  in  many 
dwelling  places.  If  I  have  learnt  anything  it  might  be  phrased 
something  like  this — it  is  the  occupancy  that  makes  the  room — 
the  company  that  makes  the  road.  So  let  me  thank  you  here 
for  every  single  year  of  that  ten. 

Yours  always, 

E.  T.  T. 


Vll 


Whatever  company  I  take, 

Whatever  highway  I  am  shown* 

By  night-time  or  at  morning-break 
It  is  my  charge  to  walk  alone. 

Whatever  friend  stretch  out  his  hand, 
Whatever  love  the  bolt  unbars, 

I  wander  in  a  foreign  land 

Between  the  furrow  and  the  stars. 

Whatever  hands  shall  make  my  bed, 
Whatever  beck'ning  voices  cry, 

The  more  let  me  hold  up  my  head 
When  I  go  out  alone  to  die. 


viii 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

It  is  now  more  than  ten  years  ago  that  "The  City 
of  Beautiful  Nonsense"  was  written,  and  much  water 
has  flowed  under  the  bridges  since  then.  Many 
times  in  the  last  six  of  those  ten  years  I  have  been 
urged  to  write  a  sequel  to  that  story.  There  was  an 
inconclusiveness  about  its  ending  I  was  told,  which, 
while  it  may  have  completed  the  color  in  its  texture 
of  romance,  still  left  threads  for  raveling  which  I 
had  not  attempted  to  secure.  Jill  Dealtry  in  the 
emotion  that  came  to  her  at  the  death-bed  of  Thomas 
Grey,  had  given  her  heart  and  her  life  to  John.  Love, 
there  on  the  Venice  lagoon,  had  made  its  conquest 
over  expediency.  She  had  put  aside  all  thought  of 
the  marriage  of  convenience  with  her  father's  friend. 
In  that  atmosphere  of  Romance,  love  and  all  the 
glamour  of  life  were  triumphant. 

Perhaps  that  was  the  secret  of  the  book's  success 
with  the  public.  It  must  be  true  of  people  in  gen- 
eral that  they  love  to  dream  a  moment  in  a  sleepless 
world — they  need  at  times  to  get  away  from  the  in- 
somnia of  facts.  I  feel  confident  that  the  majority 
of  people  reading  "The  City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense" 
had  little  desire  when  the  book  was  finished  to  know 
how  John  Grey  in  his  two  rooms  in  Fetter  Lane  and 
living,  as  the  poor  do,  by  the  grace  of  mercy  of  the 
pawn-shop  was  going  to  keep  a  wife.  I  am  sure  they 
did  not  worry  their  heads  about  it.  They  read  it  as 

iz 


x  Author  s  Note 

a  dream,  and  they  accepted  it  as  a  dream,  and  as  a 
dream  it  was  worth  while  to  just  so  many  as  it 
brought  the  consolation  of  sleep. 

There  must  as  well  have  been  a  great  many  people 
who  disliked  "The  City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense."  To 
many,  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  it  had  not  the 
faintest  conception  of  reality,  and  indeed  has  earned 
for  me  the  classification  of  sentimentalist.  I  have  no 
more  reason  to  complain  of  that  than  would  another 
have,  if  with  persistent  indiscrimination,  he  were 
always  called  a  realist. 

A  great  friend  of  mine — an  author  whose  work  I 
admire  more  than  that  of  any  other  writer  to-day — 
has  expressed  much  the  same  opinion  about  "The 
City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense"  to  me.  He  has  no 
sympathy  with  the  book.  The  absence  of  reality  in 
its  conception  offends  the  deepest  purpose  in  his  soul, 
but  being  no  hand  myself  at  explanation  by  word  of 
mouth,  he  remains  in  ignorance  of  the  deepest  pur- 
pose in  mine. 

I  realize  now  then  that  what  I  am  writing  is 
neither  more  nor  less  than  that  explanation  I  have 
withheld.  Being  a  real  friend,  he  can  tell  me  he  dis- 
likes the  book,  and,  being  sure  of  his  honesty,  I  can 
be  sincerely  glad  of  a  genuine  opinion.  For  I  realize 
that  the  same  opinion  is  in  the  minds  of  a  good  many 
people  who  have  not  the  advantages  of  friendship 
to  give  it  words. 

To  begin  with,  then,  "The  City  of  Beautiful  Non- 
sense" was  never  meant  to  touch  reality  in  the  sense 
of  such  things  as  happen  in  a  work-a-day  world. 
John  Grey,  however  real  he  may  be  in  his  peregrina- 


Author  s  Note  xi 

tions  between  Kensington  Gardens,  the  pawn-shop 
and  Fetter  Lane,  is  intended  to  symbolize  in  the 
attitude  of  his  mind  those  dreams  and  visions  whose 
substance  is  much  of  that  which  is  to  be  found  in  a 
prayer. 

I  believe  that  all  people  pray,  whether  it  be  while 
they  are  having  a  hot  bath  in  the  morning,  or  when 
they  stand  in  the  midst  of  the  barbaric  solemnity  of 
the  duomo  of  Venice.  Prayer  is  inevitable,  and  with 
prayer  go  all  those  dreams  and  visions  by  whose 
agency  we  see  the  world  just  a  little  better  than  in  a 
distressing  moment  it  happens  to  appear  to  be. 

That  whole  story  of  John  Grey's  love  affair  with 
Jill  Dealtry  is  intentionally  a  symbol  of  the  power 
of  vision,  the  susceptibility  to  dreams,  which  carries 
so  many  with  a  look  of  youth  in  the  eyes  through  to 
the  ultimate  deliverance. 

This  is  the  meaning,  as  I  purposed  it,  of  "The 
City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense."  This  is  why  it  seems 
to  me  many  have  cared  for  the  book.  This  is  why 
many  more  have  objected  to  it,  because  they  found 
themselves  sufficiently  confident  in  their  world  to  dis- 
pense with  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  the  magic  of 
dreams  or  the  virtue  of  visions. 

To  write  a  sequel,  then,  to  a  story  with  that  inten- 
tion was  something  like  purposing  to  go  to  sleep  in 
the  hope  of  repeating  a  dream  that  once  had  come  to 
you  with  a  sense  of  joy.  I  felt  it  was  impossible  to 
do  it,  and  for  three  or  four  years  resisted  all  sug- 
gestions that  I  should  make  the  attempt.  The  War, 
however,  has  brought  us  different  points  of  view, 
different  ranges  of  perspective.  In  the  last  two  years 


xii  Author's  Note 

I  have  felt,  not  only  that  it  could  be  done,  but  that 
I  wanted  to  do  it  in  order  to  achieve  a  sense  of  com- 
pletion. 

Dreams,  in  their  intangible  way,  are  real  things. 
They  have  a  meaning  in  our  lives,  however  elusive 
that  meaning  may  be.  I  had  always  felt  that  and 
had  wished  to  leave  the  dream  of  "The  City  of 
Beautiful  Nonsense"  where  it  was,  untouched  and 
undisturbed.  And  then,  some  one  day  or  another, 
I  found  the  realization  in  my  mind  that  the  meaning 
of  a  dream  is  never  apparent  till  one  wakes  up.  Once 
I  had  thought  that,  the  purpose  of  a  sequel  became 
a  tangible  business.  Could  I  wake  up  my  John  Grey 
and  still  keep  a  sense  of  beauty  in  the  meaning  of 
his  dream?  Could  I  wake  him  up  to  reality  with- 
out shattering  the  substance  of  his  vision?  Could  I 
break  his  heart  beneath  the  weight  of  things  that 
happen  without  destroying  his  belief  in  prayer? 

I  felt  if  I  could  do  that,  then  I  could  write  a  sequel, 
and  so  I  began,  with  what  result  is  to  be  found  in 
the  pages  that  follow. 

Without  prejudice,  I  think  I  can  say  there  is  no 
difference  in  the  atmosphere  or  treatment  of  the  two 
stories.  All  that  differs  is  the  purpose,  which  in  this 
volume  is  to  give  to  a  dream  its  link  with  reality. 

An  author's  vision  of  his  work  is  necessarily 
strained,  somewhat  shortsighted  and  a  prey  to  his 
emotions  about  it.  I  have  not  the  faintest  idea 
whether  I  have  succeeded  or  failed  in  my  purpose. 
All  I  am  certain  of  is  the  intention  which  I  have  set 
out  in  these  pages. 

THE  AUTHOR. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  WORLD  OF  WONDERFUL  REALITY      .     .     .  I 

II.  THE  CIRCUS  RING 8 

III.  LE  PAUVRE  MONSIEUR 16 

IV.  TOURNEDOS   AND   OMELETTE 24 

V.  OLD  TIMES 32 

VL  WHERE  TO  Go  FOR  A  HONEYMOON       ....  37 

VII.  PIED  PIPER  AND  VAGABOND 45 

VIII.  THE  ANSWER  TO  A  PRAYER 52 

IX.  A  CLEAN  BREAST  OF  IT 60 

X.  HAVING  A  DREAM 68 

XL  THE  BIRD  IN  THE  NET 74 

XII.  THE  Zoo 83 

XIII.  THE  WINDOW  THAT  Is  CLOSED 92 

XIV.  ASSESSING  THE  INCOME  OF  AN  AUTHOR     .  '  .     .  100 
XV.  THE  HUMAN  ANIMAL 109 

XVI.  A  BY-PRODUCT  OF  ADVICE 116 

XVII.  A  CONFESSION 125 

XVIII.  SHOWERS  AND  BLOWERS 132 

XIX.  AN  ENGAGEMENT  TO  EAT  A  HAT 138 

XX.  A  PRELUDE  TO  A  FAMILY 147 

XXI.  THE  BLOTTING-PAPER  PROCESS 159 

XXII.  A  PASSING  MEMORY  OF  THE  LAWYER'S  CLERK   .  164 

XXIIL  A  YOUNG  JOHN 165 

XXIV.  MRS.  ROWSE  REPORTS  A  CASE  BEFORE  THE     . 

MAGISTRATE 169 

XXV.  A  MERE  COMMERCIAL  TRANSACTION     ....  178 

XXVI.  PEEPING  TOM 184 


xiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXVII.  THE  RELEASE 191 

XXVIII.  A  MATTER  OF  HONESTY 198 

XXIX.  BIRTHS,  DEATHS  AND  MARRIAGES   ....  202 

XXX.  SELECTING  A  WITNESS 206 

XXXI.  A  CHAPTER  FOR  THOSE  WHO  LOITER  .     .     .  214 
XXXII.  INTRODUCING  A  PHILOSOPHER 216 

XXXIII.  LIFE'S  LITTLE  AWKWARDNESSES      ....  220 

XXXIV.  A  REVELATION  IN  ATMOSPHERE       ....  225 
XXXV.  BEING  A  MILLIONAIRE 235 

XXXVI.  A  FITTING  FOR  A  RING 245 

XXXVII.  PRELUDE  TO  A  REHEARSAL 248 

XXXVIII.  COSTUMES  FOR  THE  PART 251 

XXXIX.  THE  WARDROBE 253 

XL.  DRESS  REHEARSAL      .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .  260 

XLI.  LUNCH  AT  WRIGGLESWORTH'S 264 

XLII.  A  CONSULTATION  WITH  MARGARET       .     .     .271 

XLIII.  THE  PRIMITIVE  INSTINCT 276 

XLIV.  CHARLES  HENRY  QUIRK  &  Co 289 

XLV.  GOLDSMITH'S  GRAVE 296 

XLVI.  AN  EXERCISE  IN  MENTAL  OCCUPATION     .     .  305 
XLVII.  JACK  OF  CLUBS  AND  QUEEN  OF  HEARTS  .     .310 

XLVIII.  THE  SOUND  OF  PENNIES 31? 

XLIX.  THE  REST  HOUSE 331 


The  WORLD  of 
WONDERFUL  REALITY 


Chapter  I:     The  World  of  Wonderful 
Reality 

IN  a  work-a-day  world,  you  must  contrive  your 
City  of  Beautiful  Nonsense  out  of  just  that 
material  which  is  indigenous  to  the  soil  of  your 
environment.  Where  in  Venice  they  built  in  marble 
and  burnished  it  all  gold  with  the  liquid  glory  of 
the  Italian  sun,  in  London  we  build  in  brick  and 
stone  and  blacken  it  with  all  the  falling  soots  of 
heaven. 

Of  such  matters  of  necessity,  there  is  only  this  to 
be  said — that  gold  of  Venice  may  sometimes  seem 
a  tawdry  gilt  while  all  the  blackened  stones  and 
bricks  of  London  can  steal  a  glow  of  pearl  out  of 
the  misty  sky;  can  wear  a  bloom  of  azure  gray  that 
makes  it  seem — in  dingy  streets — as  if  the  feet  of 
God  were  walking  only  distant  by  a  web  of  smoke. 

It  all  lies  in  the  eyes  that  forever  must  look  up 
and  down,  up  and  down,  until  they  need  and  earn 
their  sleep. 

And  last  of  all — for  like  the  clergyman  with  his 
sermon,  no  less  than  the  woman  with  her  postscript, 
there  is  always  some  matter  of  importance  to  be 
divulged  as  soon  as  ever  the  last  word  be  given — 
last  of  all  it  must  be  explained  that  the  City  of 
Beautiful  Nonsense  is  no  other  than  that  native  town, 
wherein  is  kept  the  registration  of  your  birthright. 


2          World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

You  move  your  dwelling  place.  Again  and  again 
you  move.  But  still  after  years  and  years,  in  one 
amongst  a  row  of  volumes  on  the  shelf  in  the  vestry 
of  your  parish  church,  there  is  inscribed  the  record 
of  your  birthright,  wherein  is  sealed  your  claim  to 
all  the  beauties  of  earth  and  sky. 

You,  born  in  all  your  nakedness,  with  perhaps 
one  width  of  your  mother's  flannel  petticoat  for 
your  swaddling  clothes,  a  leaking  roof  in  the  slummy 
outskirts  of  the  town  to  shelter  your  head,  the 
parish  pump  at  which  to  wash  your  face,  have  yet 
that  right  to  all  the  beauties  of  the  sun  at  morn- 
ing as  it  comes  above  the  world,  of  the  sun  no  less 
at  evening  when  it  falls  below  the  earth. 

You  are  as  rich  in  your  heart  as  the  heir  to 
kingdoms  is  rich  in  pocket.  For  while,  as  it  may 
be  said,  you  are  born  to  sorrow  as  the  sparks  fly 
upwards,  it  is  that  sorrow  of  forgetting  your  native 
town,  forgetting  that  birthright  of  your  riches  which 
is  written  in  the  dusty  book.  It  is  the  sorrow  of 
that  tendency  of  man  to  close  the  gates  of  his  birth- 
place as  he  sets  forth  into  the,  world  and  to  lock 
himself  out  forever. 

I  know  a  man  who,  hearing  the  sound  of  cow- 
bells in  the  Swiss  valleys,  bought  some  for  himself 
and  brought  them  home  that  he  might  tinkle  them 
on  dreary  days  and  think  of  the  sunrise  warm  on 
the  mountain  snow,  of  the  valleys  green  with  their 
luscious  grass. 

It  occurred  to  him  after  a  while  how  poor  a 
substitute  for  the  sound  it  was  to  shake  them  in 
his  hand  himself,  wherefore  he  conceived  the  idea 


World  of  Wonderful  Reality         3 

of  having  a  cow  of  his  own  and  attaching  the  bell 
to  her  neck.  Though  he  had  four  acres  of  paddock 
land  with  his  little  cottage  in  the  country,  this  idea 
had  never  appealed  to  him  before.  It  was  the  bells 
that  had  suggested  it.  The  next  Saturday,  in  the 
nearest  market  place,  he  bought  a  Guernsey  cow. 

On  summer  evenings  he  would  lie  in  bed,  those 
moments  before  sleep  when  all  the  quiet  thoughts 
come  to  you  like  John  the  Baptists  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  your  mind,  the  forerunners  of  your  dreams. 
So  he  would  lie  listening  to  the  sound  of  the  tinkling 
bell,  as  only  a  beast  can  tinkle  it,  such  time  when 
she  moves  from  one  sweet  tuft  of  grass  to  another, 
grazing  after  the  heat  of  the  day. 

That  Guernsey  cow  gave  beautiful  milk,  abundant 
in  cream.  It  was  more  than  he  needed  for  himself. 
Why  did  he  not  make  his  own  butter  they  asked 
him.  Why,  indeed? 

He  bought  a  churn  and  pans  to  separate  the 
milk.  He  bought  a  wooden  stamp,  concaved  with 
the  figure  of  a  majestic  swan.  He  bought  Scotch 
hands  as  well. 

It  became  apparent  then  that  the  Guernsey  cow 
did  not  yield  enough  for  butter  and  milk  as  well, 
moreover  her  produce  diminished  as  the  weeks  went 
by.  He  must  buy  another  cow  and  he  bought  an- 
other. Then  there  was  more  than  enough  for  his 
needs.  He  had  butter  to  sell  and  he  sold  it,  and 
the  first  time  he  received  payment  for  his  pounds 
of  butter  was  like  finding  a  piece  of  silver  in  a  field 
of  meadow  grass.  So  much  was  it  like  finding  it, 
that  the  desire  became  imperative  to  find  more. 


4          World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

He  took  a  small  farm — eighty  acres,  no  more — 
eighty  acres  of  pasture  land  that  were  all  his  own, 
when  he  discovered  that  the  law  of  trespass  for 
which  he  had  always  had  contempt  when  he  read 
the  forbidding  notice  on  those  boards  across  the 
countryside,  became  a  real  law,  protecting  him  and 
something  that  was  his.  He  used  to  feel  that  the 
boards  were  like  policemen,  holding  up  their  hands 
before  the  eager  traffic  of  his  soul,  whereas  now,  he 
knew  them  to  be  the  power  of  the  law  safeguarding 
his  property  from  marauding  hands. 

One  summer  afternoon,  walking  through  one  of 
his  meadows  put  down  for  hay,  when  the  glittering 
dust  of  the  buttercups  was  splashed  like  gold-foil 
over  his  boots,  he  found  two  little  children.  They 
were  picking  daisies  and  that  shivering  grass  which 
hangs  up  little  bells  of  seed  on  almost  invisible  wires 
and  tinkles  them  to  the  first  whisper  of  a  breeze. 

"Who  gave  you  permission  to  come  into  this 
field?"  he  asked. 

They  stood  up,  clutching  their  bunches  of  daisies 
and  looking  from  one  to  the  other  for,  from  the 
dread  sound  in  his  voice,  they  dared  not  look  at 
him. 

Evidently  no  one  had  given  them  permission. 
Indeed,  who  could  have  done  so  but  he?  Yet  there 
is  that  judicial  instinct  in  most  of  us,  which  urges 
us  to  assume  the  offender's  innocence  before  their 
guilt  is  proven.  This  was  the  first  question  he  was 
bound  to  ask,  to  which,  receiving  no  answer,  he 
continued : 


World  of  Wonderful  Reality         5 

"Did  you  know  that  this  meadow  was  put  down 
for  hay  and  that  you've  been  trampling  it  down, 
depreciating  the  value  of  it  with  every  step  you 
take?  Look  at  the  path  you've  made!" 

They  found  a  trembling  interest  in  the  corners 
of  their  pinafores,  bringing  him  thereby  to  exaspera- 
tion; for  there  they  were,  culprits  caught  in  the  act, 
refusing  him  even  the  satisfaction  of  answering  him 
back. 

"Where  did  you  get  in?"  he  asked  them. 

They  pointed  to  a  gap  in  the  hedge  and  the  next 
day  to  preserve  his  meadow  hay,  he  had  a  sign- 
board put  up  in  that  place  where,  to  all  who  passed, 
it  read — "Trespassers  will  be  prosecuted." 

He  watched  his  man  putting  it  up,  standing  back 
in  some  sense  of  pleasure  and  satisfaction  to  regard 
it  when  it  was  fixed. 

"Those  children  think  the  whole  world  belongs 
to  'em,"  he  said. 

"That's  only  because  they're  young,  sir,"  pleaded 
his  man  in  their  defense.  "They  won't  think  that 
long.  They'll  grow  out  of  it." 

He  was  just  lighting  a  pipe,  but  at  the  sound 
of  those  words — they'll  grow  out  of  it — he  let  the 
match  burn  out  in  his  fingers. 

In  three  years'  time,  he  had  a  herd  of  twenty 
milking  cows  and  one  night,  when  the  worries  of 
sheep  at  lambing  time  had  robbed  him  of  his  sleep 
for  a  week  or  more,  he  lay  tired  out  on  his  pillows 
trying  to  get  his  rest.  Every  few  moments,  just 
as  he  was  dozing  off,  a  sound,  through  the  darkness 
of  the  night,  jarred  on  his  ears  and  his  eyes  opened. 


6          World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

For  a  long  while  he  bore  with  it  in  silence,  but  then 
at  last  sat  up  in  bed,   when,   out  of  the   fullness 
of  despair  in  his  heart,  he  shouted  out: 
uOh— damn  those  bells!" 

It  is  this  evil  habit  of  acquisitiveness,  this  fatal 
passion  to  accumulate  rather  than  simplify,  by  which 
a  man  locks  the  gates  upon  his  native  town  and,  in 
all  that  burning  impulse  to  possess,  he  flings  away 
the  key. 

Indeed,  this  is  an  idolatrous  age.  It  is  not 
enough  to  feel  beauty.  We  must  possess  it.  It  is 
not  sufficient  for  it  to  be  in  our  hearts;  we  must 
have  it  on  our  mantelshelves.  And  the  moment  we 
place  it  there,  it  becomes  an  idol,  when,  having  thus 
given  ourselves  over  to  false  gods,  the  true  instinct 
of  worship  has  gone  like  a  cloud  on  the  wind  out 
of  our  hearts. 

This,  could  we  but  realize  it,  this  fetish  of  ap- 
pearances, this  is  the  false  religion  of  the  whole 
world.  Beauty  and  truth,  these  are  the  true  Gods. 
There  is  no  need  for  their  images,  once  they  are 
in  our  hearts.  But  with  the  hearts  that  are  empty 
— and  who  shall  say  how  many  our  civilization  has 
so  despoiled — there,  before  our  eyes,  are  raised  the 
graven  images  of  virtue,  where  all  who  worship  may 
be  seen  and  honored  by  those  who  pass  by. 

Every  one  of  us,  we  buy  those  cow-bells  and  bring 
them  home,  as  though,  putting  them  on  our  mantle- 
piece,  we  had  captured  for  ourselves  the  green 
valleys  and  the  mountain  snow.  Everyone  buys 
them  until,  creating  a  market,  they  are  made  by  the 


World  of  Wonderful  Reality         7 

thousands  in  Birmingham,  when  all  the  beauty  of 
sound  we  once  heard  tinkling  on  those  grassy 
slopes,  is  reduced  to  the  ugly  cries  of  a  clamoring 
Commerce. 

For  this  in  the  end  is  what  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion has  brought  us  to,  a  cry  of  Commerce,  far 
into  the  night  when,  with  my  friend,  we  sit  up  in 
our  beds  and,  in  all  the  bloodiness  of  anger,  we 
shout  out: 

"Oh— damn  those  bells  I" 

One  night,  out  of  the  City  of  Venice,  there  came 
Jill  Dealtry  creeping  back  to  London  with  all  so 
much  beauty  in  her  heart  as  ever  a  woman  has  had 
with  which  to  face  the  world. 

Two  days  later,  after  the  burial  of  the  little  old 
white-haired  lady  by  the  side  of  his  father,  John 
Grey  followed  Jill.  Before  forty-eight  hours  were 
passed,  he  walked  through  Mrs.  Meakin's  shop, 
climbing  the  uncarpeted  stairs  to  his  rooms  in 
Fetter  Lane. 


Chapter  II :    The  Circus  Ring 

EFE,  in  moments,  has  an  uncomfortable  habit, 
to  put  it  colloquially,  of  getting  up  and  look- 
ing at  you.  There  is  no  avoiding  its  gaze. 
You  may  have  thought  you  had  tamed  and  trained 
it  to  a  definite  course  of  reliable  behavior.  Like  a 
man  with  the  dog  he  has  brought  up  from  a  puppy, 
you  believed  your  will  was  the  deciding  factor.  If 
it  stole  the  milk  you  have  put  out  for  you  every 
evening — and  the  best-trained  dog  might  do  that — 
you  could  give  it  a  thrashing  or  appropriate  one  of 
its  dog  biscuits  for  yourself.  I  knew  a  man  who 
always  selected  the  latter  punishment. 

Well,  you  have  probably  thought  Life  was  much 
the  same  as  this.  You  have  not  been  such  a  fool — 
possessing  as  you  do  the  world's  wisdom — to  believe 
it  incapable  of  misbehavior,  but  there  has  been  a 
confident  assurance  in  your  bones  that  if  anything 
went  wrong,  you  had  inherited  the  power  of  will  to 
put  it  right.  The  clergyman  of  your  parish  and  the 
deep,  religious  convictions  of  your  parents  have 
fostered  this  belief  in  you. 

"God,"  they  have  told  you,  "may  put  temptation 
in  your  path;  He  may  make  Life  very  hard  at  times, 
but  you  always  have  free  will  to  exercise  for  your 
own  salvation." 

8 


The  Circus  Ring  9 

Telling  you  this,  has  been  like  putting  a  whip  in 
your  hand  which  you  have  felt  inclined  to  use  upon 
the  first  recalcitrant  object  that  comes  your  way. 
You  feel  like  the  master  in  the  circus  ring,  having 
only  to  crack  your  whip  to  be  obeyed. 

The  swagger  of  mind  which  accompanies  this  sen- 
sation of  opulent  volition,  deters  you  from  a  delicate 
calculation  as  to  who  puts  up  the  tent  where  your 
brief  performance  is  to  take  place.  It  likewise  dis- 
inclines you  from  any  examination  of  the  circum- 
stances by  which  in  your  polished  silk  hat,  your  white 
breeches  and  your  Hessian  boots,  you  happen  to  be 
there  at  all. 

You  just  take  everything  for  granted — whip,  top- 
boots  and  all.  And  then  one  day,  the  door  which 
kept  the  East  African  Lion  in  his  cage  breaks  down 
to  his  impetuous  assault  upon  it  and  of  a  sudden  that 
jolly  circus  ring  becomes  a  tropical  jungle  of  un- 
comfortable possibilities,  while  the  whip  you  have 
been  cracking  so  effectively  in  your  hand  feels  like  a 
thread  of  worsted  tied  on  to  the  end  of  a  slate 
pencil. 

If  that  colloquialism  can  be  excused,  this  might  be 
described  in  the  manner  already  shown,  as  one  of 
those  moments  when  life  gets  up  and  looks  at  you. 

It  was  precisely  in  just  such  a  condition  of  affairs 
that  John  Grey  found  himself  that  evening  on  his 
return  from  Venice  to  Fetter  Lane.  Mrs.  Rowse 
had  left  the  room  tidy  in  preparation  for  his  arrival. 
The  brass  was  polished.  The  old  bits  of  china  in 
the  cupboard  had  been  washed.  The  waste-paper 
basket  was  standing  indifferently  right  on  top  of  the 


IO        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

stain  on  the  carpet  where  the  bottle  of  ink  had  been 
dropped.  It  even  assumed  an  air  of  being  there  by 
accident. 

At  any  other  time,  John  would  have  stood  at  the 
door — he  had  often  done  so  upon  former  returns 
from  his  travels — he  would  have  stood  at  the  door, 
saying: 

"Not  a  bad  little  place,  you  know — jolly  cozy 
when  the  fire's  lit  and  a  few  candles  are  burning. 
Pull  the  curtains  and  shut  the  door  and  get  to  a  bit 
of  work  and,  Good  Lord,  I  don't  want  anything 
better  I" 

This  is  the  proper,  the  natural  instinct  of  one  re- 
turning to  his  own  home  after  leagues  of  travel  in 
even  the  most  beautiful  corners  of  the  world.  I 
should  be  accused  of  such  gross  sentiment  were  I  to 
write  of  the  beauties  of  home,  the  corner  in  which 
one  is  wont  to  sit,  the  faces  of  the  books  one  is 
wont  to  see,  the  wink  in  the  eye  of  the  brass  candle- 
stick to  which  one  has  been  wont  to  wink  in  return; 
of  such  gross  sentiment  should  I  be  accused  that  I 
dare  not  attempt  it. 

All  such  beauties,  John  would  have  seen  at  any 
other  time  than  this.  But  Life  at  that  moment 
was  getting  up  and  looking  at  him.  The  waste- 
paper  basket  had  lost  all  its  cuteness  of  deception. 
It  stood  there  magnanimously  over  the  ink-stain, 
but  no  longer  concealed  it.  It  was  all  very  well  to 
think  of  the  fire  lit  and  the  candles  burning,  but  he 
knew  there  were  no  coals  in  the  cupboard  on  the 
landing  outside.  The  candlesticks  were  candleless. 
And  had  he  thought  of  a  meal — which  after  that 


The  Circus  Ring  II 

long  journey  on  an  empty  stomach  was  precisely  of 
what  he  was  thinking — then  he  knew  the  oak  cor- 
ner cupboard  was  empty. 

At  any  other  time,  as  has  been  said,  John  would 
have  stood  alone  at  the  door,  thinking  how  splendid 
everything  was.  But  he  was  alone  no  longer.  Jill 
and  he  were  to  be  married.  Jill  was  there  by  the 
side  of  him  then  and  with  him  was  peering  into 
the  room  which  was  to  be  the  parlor  of  her  married 
life. 

It  was  she  who  saw  the  ink-stain  under  the  waste- 
paper  basket.  It  was  she  who  guessed  the  coal 
cupboard  was  empty;  she  who  divined  there  was  not 
a  crumb  of  food  in  the  house. 

She  it  was,  indeed,  who  had  made  all  the  un- 
comfortable discoveries  about  that  home  of  his  from 
the  very  first  moment  he  had  entered  Mrs.  Meakin's 
shop.  There  was  no  real  necessity  for  her  to  go 
that  way.  The  private  door  at  the  side  was  for 
the  use  of  Mrs.  Brown  and  Mrs.  Morrell  and 
though  there  was  no  linoleum  up  his  stairs,  John 
Grey  had  an  electric  bell  which  went  far  to  making 
a  real  gentleman  of  him.  He  had,  however,  chosen 
to  take  her  this  way,  and  the  moment  he  had  done 
so,  had  known  that  she  had  observed  the  rabbit 
skins  Mrs.  Meakin  always  kept  in  the  background 
of  her  fruiterer's  shop.  They  were  only  a  side  line, 
something  to  make  good  when  things  were  bad  in 
Covent  Garden.  She  had  seen  them  all  the  same 
in  their  dark  corner.  The  stain  of  red  merging  into 
the  pallid  blue  had  caught  her  eye.  He  had  hurried 
her  past  into  the  passage. 


12        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

The  worst  was  over,  he  thought.  But  no.  Those 
friendly  cats  he  remembered  only  by  their  scuffling 
frolics  on  the  stairs,  were  revealed  to  this  spirit 
of  Jill  by  a  penetrating  odor  it  would  have  been 
affectation  to  ignore.  He  watched  the  wraith  of 
her  face  there  beside  him  all  the  way  up  the  stairs, 
and  were  it  by  the  faint  tightening  of  her  nostrils 
alone,  he  knew  that  she  had  noticed  it.  The  word 
— noticed — occurred  to  him  involuntarily.  Had  it 
been  himself^  he  would  have  exclaimed: 

"God!     What  a  stink!" 

And  with  the  mere  ejaculation,  he  would  have 
blown  it  away.  It  is  only  when  you  notice  a  smell, 
that  it  lingers. 

Then  last  of  all  the  empty  cupboards,  the  ink- 
stained  carpet  and  the  cheerless  grate.  This  Jill  he 
had  brought  with  him,  the  Jill  to  whom  he  was  to 
be  married,  the  Jill  who  was  now  inseparably  a 
part  of  himself,  made  observation  of  all  these  things 
and  the  worst  of  it  was,  he  did  not  know  for  certain 
whether  she  had  turned  and  looked  at  him  with 
reproach  or  not. 

He  was  to  be  married.  No  doubt  had  entered 
his  mind  as  to  that.  When,  therefore,  he  stood  for 
those  few  moments  at  the  door  looking  into  the 
room,  Life  preceded  him  in  a  leisurely  manner  to 
get  up  and  look  at  him — look  at  him  square  in  the 
face. 

Never  had  Life  behaved  in  this  disconcerting  way 
before.  There  had,  for  example,  been  no  responsi- 
bility in  finding  a  meal  for  himself  or  in  replenishing 
the  sack  of  coals  in  the  cupboard  outside  when  it 


The  Circus  Ring  13 

happened  to  be  cold  on  a  winter's  night.  There 
arose  no  sensation  of  pledges  broken  or  any  dis- 
tressful suggestion  of  honor  lost  if  he  had  to  go 
hungry  for  his  dinner  or  sit  blowing  on  his  fingers 
to  give  him  the  feeling  of  his  pen. 

These  were  just  casual  circumstances  to  be  met 
by  a  tightening  of  that  buckle  at  the  back  of  the 
waistcoat,  by  burning  the  whole  collection  of  last 
week's  newspapers  and  sheets  of  wasted  manuscript, 
until  there  was  nothing  in  the  grate  but  layers  and 
layers  of  feathery  black  ashes.  And  even  after  that, 
he  could  go  to  bed. 

This  was  the  cracking  of  the  whip  in  the  circus- 
ring — an  operation  which  had  always  appeared  so 
successful  in  every  other  contingency. 

"Hi!  Ho!"  you  shouted  and  the  lash  snapped 
like  a  pistol  shot,  when  the  old  piebald  horse  of 
revolving  circumstance,  which  had  for  the  moment 
seemed  indisposed  to  carry  out  his  advertised  gyra- 
tions, made  on  again  with  that  ambling  trot  of  his 
around  the  arena.  There  was  always  free  will. 
Always  you  were  master  in  that  circus-ring  with  the 
canvas  of  God's  solicitude  over  your  head  and  the 
flares  of  a  divine  providence  lighting  your  sawdust 
stage. 

But  as  John  stood  there  alone  that  evening,  look- 
ing at  his  rooms  in  Fetter  Lane,  he  knew  it  was 
near  the  impossible  to  take  a  lady  from  a  fashion- 
able house  in  Kensington  to  a  home  where,  when 
a  meal  was  wanting  you  just  asked  her  to  tighten 
the  laces  of  her  stays.  In  any  case,  if  such  a  con- 
tingency arose  she  would  prefer  you  to  call  them 


14        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

corsets.  It  would  be  no  less  impossible  on  one  of 
those  chill  winter  evenings  to  say  to  her: 

"There's  no  coal  in  the  place,  my  dear — we'd 
better  go  to  bed." 

It  might  only  be  six  o'clock,  yet  just  as  cold  as 
if  it  were  midnight. 

It  was  in  considerations  such  as  these  that  Life 
was  getting  up  and  looking  John  in  the  face.  Here 
was  the  East  African  lion  well  out  of  this  cage  and 
roaring  about  the  arena  in  a  way  that  would  make 
any  ring-master  with  the  toughest  whip  in  the  world 
wonder  what  the  devil  he  was  going  to  do  next. 

Riding  that  night  together  in  their  gondola  on 
the  Lagoon,  with  the  silver  sickle  of  a  moon  reap- 
ing its  passage  through  a  field  of  stars,  with  the 
tinkling  sounds  of  music  across  the  Grand  Canal 
and  the  vibrations  of  a  man's  voice  muted  by  the 
rippling  water  as  he  sang,  John  had  never  thought 
of  these  things  then. 

But  now,  back  once  more  in  Fetter  Lane  and, 
but  for  that  wraith  of  Jill,  alone  with  the  spitting 
noise  of  that  eternally  dripping  tap  on  the  landing 
outside,  with  Mrs.  Morrell  singing  as  she  washed 
her  husband's  shirts  and  Mrs.  Brown  walking  their 
sitting-room  up  above  while  she  nursed  her  baby  to 
its  reluctant  sleep,  it  was  enough  to  make  any  man 
question  that  power  of  will  with  which  God  had  so 
generously  endowed  him. 

"What  do  you  say  to  a  lady,"  he  asked  aloud, 
"when  there's  nothing  in  the  cupboard,  when  your 
pockets  are  empty  and  you  sit  shivering  as  you  look 
at  each  other,  trying  to  pretend  you  don't  hear  each 


The  Circus  Ring  15 

other  rumbling  with  hunger — what  do  you  say  to 
a  lady,  then?" 

To  all  whom  it  may  concern,  there  is  no  answer. 
If  you  come  to  such  a  state  of  catechism  as  this  and 
carry  your  sense  of  humor  with  you  deep  in  your 
breast  pocket  or  even  worn  upon  your  sleeve,  you 
do  much  as  John  did.  You  whistle  a  tune  as  you 
count  out  the  limitations  of  your  worldly  posses- 
sions; you  shut  the  door  again  letting  the  room  and 
everything  that  is  in  it  take  care  of  itself  and  you 
set  off  for  that  little  restaurant  where,  if  you  do 
eat  more  than  your  fortune's  worth,  the  little 
waitress  will  make  good  your  deficit  till  you  come 
again. 


Chapter  III :  L,e  Pauvre  Monsieur 

WHERE  John  dined  was   largely   a   matter 
of   circumstance.      He   knew   men   in  the 
Martyrs'  Club  with  which  it  was  a  mat- 
ter of  choice. 

Broadly  speaking,  there  were  three  places  of 
which  in  a  mild  sense  he  might  have  been  called  a 
habitue.  In  order  of  merit  to  connoisseurs  of 
food — for  these  people  are  always  glad  to  hear  of 
a  new  place — they  were  as  follows :  First,  the 
Alcazar  Restaurant.  You  could  pay  your  bill  there 
in  gold  if  you  liked  and  nothing  short  of  brute 
courage  would  nerve  you  to  look  for  change.  Din- 
ing there  once  in  days  of  the  possession  of  the  fur 
coat,  John  had  mistaken  the  price  of  a  full  bottle 
of  champagne  for  a  pint.  It  had  been  the  first 
time  he  had  ever  bought  champagne  in  a  restaurant 
and  the  mistake  which  seems  incredible  was  really 
not  so  much  to  be  wondered  at. 

If  you  have  a  vague,  though  more  or  less  ac- 
curate, impression  that  champagne  in  a  wine  mer- 
chants costs  anything  from  twelve  to  fourteen 
shillings  a  bottle,  you  will,  as  like  as  not,  think  that 
twenty-five  shillings  refers  to  a  magnum  on  the  wine 
list  of  a  restaurant.  There  are  people  with  simple 

16 


Le  Pauvre  Monsieur  17 

minds  like  this.  They  have  an  implicit  faith  in 
human  nature. 

John  had  been  dining  a  rising  young  actor  who 
at  any  time  in  the  career  that  was  waiting  for  him 
might  have  taken  a  play  of  John's.  John  never  had 
written  a  play;  but  once  you  get  a  pen  in  your  hand 
you  never  quite  know  what  is  going  to  happen. 

However  it  might  be,  John  had  regarded  that  din- 
ner with  a  certain  degree  of  the  honest  wisdom  of  the 
world.  That  is  not  to  suggest  that  he  did  not  enjoy 
it  as  well.  The  Alcazar  Restaurant  is  a  notable 
place  and  the  rising  young  actor  was  recognized  by 
many  who  had  seen  him  on  the  stage.  He  had  a 
great  disdain  of  being  recognized  and,  terrifically, 
John  admired  the  supreme  unconsciousness  with 
which  he  passed  through  the  lounge  where  one  head 
after  another  was  turned  to  see  him  go  by. 

He  could  look  at  a  group  of  people  so  naturally 
and  with  such  superb  unconcern  that  you  would 
never  believe  he  had  heard  their  sibilant  whisper- 
ings, mentioning  his  name.  It  was  only  when  people 
did  not  recognize  him  that  he  seemed  to  lose  his 
head  and  become  forced  and  unnatural.  Then  he 
would  laugh  and  gesticulate  and  raise  his  voice  when 
he  talked.  And  really  in  those  moments — only  they 
were  so  seldom — he  was  most  entertaining  of  all. 

It  was  a  vastly  pre-occupying  business,  this  busi- 
ness of  being  supremely  unconcerned.  It  takes  the 
deuce  of  a  witty  fellow  to  be  entertaining  when  once 
he  is  absorbed  with  it. 

However,  this  rising  young  actor  was  somebody 
to  be  giving  a  dinner  to.  There  was  no  doubt  about 


1 8        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

that  and  John  had  ordered  his  bottle  of  number 
thirty-eight,  as  though  it  were  a  carafe  of  water, 
or,  at  most,  nothing  more  than  a  lemon  squash. 

And  then  in  the  lounge,  when  they  were  listening 
to  the  orchestra  after  dinner,  there  came  the  bill 
folded  in  half  to  preserve  the  secret  of  his  extrava- 
gance. As  John  glanced  at  it  his  heart  turned  to 
sickness  and  beat  with  a  dull  throbbing  in  ten  differ- 
ent places  at  once. 

It  was  two  shillings  more  than  he  had  in  his 
pocket  and  he  had  calculated  it  so  carefully,  allow- 
ing fourteen  shillings  for  the  champagne,  to  admit 
of  tips  with  a  margin  of  half-a-crown  in  case  of 
emergencies.  And  the  waiter  stood  there  imper- 
turbably  amongst  all  those  people,  like  a  recording 
angel  on  the  day  of  judgment.  It  seemed  as  though 
any  moment  he  might  lift  up  his  voice  and  cry 
through  the  vaults  of  heaven  to  the  very  throne  of 
God:  "Here  is  one  who  cannot  pay  his  bill!" 

John  leant  closer  to  his  guest  who  was  gazing 
with  the  eyes  of  oblivion  at  a  party  of  people  nudging 
each  other  to  look  at  him.  With  a  rush  of  instinct 
he  realized  his  position.  The  sound  of  John's  voice 
as  he  asked  for  the  loan  of  five  shillings  was  suffi- 
cient to  reveal  to  him  the  awful  truth.  High  on  his 
forehead  the  blood  rushed  hot  and  red.  He  was 
dining  with  a  man  who  could  not  afford  to  pay  his 
bill  and  it  seemed  at  the  best  as  if  people  must  at 
least  be  sorry  for  him. 

"Lord,  yes!  Take  what  you  want!"  said  he  with 
an  open  voice — and  he  fetched  out  of  his  pocket 
a  handful  of  money  that  jingled  in  John's  ears  like 


Le  Pauvre  Monsieur  19 

the  keys  of  heaven.  There  are  moments  when,  if 
you  are  a  really  first-class  actor,  you  must,  so  to 
speak,  take  the  situation  in  both  hands  and  carry 
it  in  full  view  of  the  audience.  Like  the  actor  who 
was  given  an  onion  to  eat  instead  of  an  apple,  and 
he  munched  it  with  such  relish  it  might  have  been 
a  Cox's  Orange  pippin. 

But  once  the  waiter  had  departed,  the  young  actor 
muttered  in  John's  ear:  "Why  on  earth  didn't  you 
get  them  to  give  you  a  blank  check." 

John  had  not  thought  of  that.  Indeed  it  needs 
an  account  at  a  bank  for  the  idea  to  occur  to  one 
with  any  degree  of  promptitude. 

This  was  the  place  which  John  visited  only  on 
the  rarest  of  occasions.  If  a  man  wanted  to  ap- 
preciate the  fact  that  you  were  giving  him  some- 
thing to  eat,  you  took  him  to  the  Alcazar  Restaurant. 
Fortunately  for  him,  the  most  of  John's  acquaint- 
ances were  those  who  were  satisfied  with  a  cut  from 
the  joint. 

And  it  was  at  Wrigglesworth's,  with  its  saw- 
dust floor  and  its  parrot  in  the  cage,  you  could 
get  the  best  dinner  in  London.  For  half  a  crown, 
you  could  have  twenty  cuts  from  the  tenderest  joint 
in  the  world,  it  being  assumed  that  by  the  time 
you  had  had  two,  together  with  liberal  helpings  of 
potato  and  cabbage,  you  were  not  thinking  of  the 
third  with  the  same  optimism  as  when  you  sat  down 
to  your  meal. 

A d  lib,  when  it  refers  opulently  to  the  amount  you 
can  eat,  are  necromantic  words.  There  is  no  end 


2O        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

of  sorcery  about  them.  They  conjure  up  visions 
which  not  even  a  wager  could  make  true. 

Yet  whenever  John  had  so  much  as  half  a  crown 
to  spend  upon  a  meal  and  usually  there  was  an 
appetite  to  go  with  it,  those  two  words  succeeded 
in  tricking  him  every  time.  Ad  lib!  Well,  with 
that  assurance  before  you,  you  can  at  least  eat  a 
meal  in  peace.  At  the  Alcazar,  even  the  seven  and 
sixpenny  dinner  prix  fixe  came  out  at  twelve  shillings 
a  head  by  the  time  you  had  said  grace  and  looked 
twice  round  the  room. 

Here,  then,  the  first  two  places  are  easily  dis- 
posed of.  But  I  could  write  a  whole  chapter  about 
the  third. 

Le  Pauvre  Monsieur  was  no  place  for  connois- 
seurs. Monsieur  and  Madame  Defautin  would 
have  been  distressed,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  had 
anyone  appeared  at  the  door  of  their  dining-room 
in  the  immaculate  evening  dress  of  the  connoisseur. 
They  had  not  called  their  little  eating-room — The 
Poor  Gentleman — for  nothing. 

If  you  want  to  know,  they  had  called  it  The  Poor 
Gentleman  for  the  very  best  reason  in  the  world 
and  there  was  no  more  typical  an  example  of  their 
good  reason  than  John  himself.  Thus  they  had 
named  it  because  the  poor  are  everywhere,  in  every 
street,  in  every  quarter  and  wherever  they  are,  there 
is  not  one  amongst  them  who  would  not  be  thought 
a  gentleman  if  he  could. 

Imagine  their  clientele!  Le  Pauvre  Monsieur 
was  never  without  its  customers.  For  one  of  the 
unwritten  principles  of  the  establishment  was,  that 


L,e  Pauvre  Monsieur  21 

when  once  you  became  a  recognized  visitor,  it  was 
always  possible  to  leave  your  bill  unpaid.  To  put 
it  vulgarly,  you  need  never  go  for  long  on  an  empty 
stomach  if  you  were  one  who  frequented  Le  Pauvre 
Monsieur. 

The  name  of  the  place  and  your  presence  there 
were  Monsieur  Defautin's  guarantee.  You  were 
poor?  Well,  what  more  probable  than  that  you 
could  not  pay  your  bill!  But  you  were  a  gentle- 
man. Then  what  more  certain  than  that  you  would 
come  back  one  day  and  discharge  it  when  you  could. 

They  always  watched  your  departure  on  those 
occasions  when  your  bill  was  undischarged,  smiling 
and  nodding  their  heads  and  saying  how  welcome 
you  would  be  when  you  honored  them  with  another 
visit.  But  the  moment  the  door  closed,  I  have  seen 
Monsieur  turn  to  Madame,  shaking  his  head  and 
with  a  certain  note  of  despondency  saying  to  her: 
"I  hope  he  won't  be  very  hungry  before  he  can  afford 
to  come  back." 

By  reason  of  his  being  a  gentleman,  John  had 
sometimes  been  kept  away  from  their  company  for 
weeks  together — times  when  the  loaf  of  bread  and 
an  occasional  egg  from  the  tallow  chandler's  shop 
had  had  to  be  enough.  But  it  was  like  the  return 
of  the  Prodigal  Son  when  he  appeared  in  the  De- 
fautin's establishment  again. 

The  moment  his  face  showed  inside  the  door, 
Madame  was  down  between  the  tables  like  a  fat  piper 
doing  a  sword-dance,  and  shaking  him  by  the  hand. 
They  were  mother  and  father  to  the  greatly  poor 
or  the  little  rich — whichever  you  like  to  call  them — 


22        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

were  this  Monsieur  and  Madame  Defautin.  All 
those  who  came  there  to  their  stuffy  restaurant  at 
the  back  of  Dean  Street,  were  their  sons  and 
daughters.  And  whenever  they  could  not  pay  their 
bill,  these  sons  and  daughters  of  theirs;  whenever 
they  began  with  the  same  old  excuses  of  not  having 
brought  enough  out  with  them,  leaving  the  premises 
with  that  incriminating  slip  of  paper  bearing  its 
record  against  them,  it  was  like  a  child  going  out 
into  the  world  when  you  are  never  wholly  certain 
of  its  return  or  whether  it  will  not  have  lost  some 
of  its  love  for  you,  together  with  some  of  its  illu- 
sions about  you  if  ever  it  sets  foot  on  the  threshold 
of  home  again. 

I  shall  say  nothing  about  the  cooking  at  The  Poor 
Gentleman.  If  you  have  ever  been  hungry,  you 
know  the  full  value  of  the  faintest  sound  of  such 
words  as:  Omelette  aux  fines  herbes  or  tournedos 
or  filet  de  bceuf.  The  mere  appearance  of  them, 
scribbled  in  a  spidery  French  handwriting  across 
the  menu  is  sufficient  to  make  your  mouth  water. 

Unfolding  the  paper  serviette  as  you  sit  down, 
you  say:  "Omelette  aux  fines  herbes  and  filet,"  and 
while  you  sit  waiting  for  it,  you  are  eating  the  best 
omelette  and  the  most  succulent  filet  you  have  ever 
tasted  in  your  life.  If  the  omelette  is  not  so  won- 
derfully made  after  all  when  actually  it  is  put  before 
you,  the  appetite  you  have  by  that  time  has  ceased 
to  be  particular. 

That  evening  on  his  return  from  Venice,  John 
made  off  to  these  parents  of  his  inner  man.  There 
was  not  even  so  much  as  a  glass  of  coffee  against 


L,e  Pauvre  Monsieur  23 

his  good  name  as  a  poor  gentleman.  He  entered 
the  room,  receiving  the  exclamatory  greetings  of 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Defautin  with  not  a  twinge 
of  his  conscience.  Whatever  it  might  happen  to  be, 
he  could  pay  for  his  dinner  that  night  and  when 
you  are  a  poor  gentleman  you  have  little  need  to 
look  further  than  this. 

When  once  he  had  shaken  them  by  the  hands, 
when  once  he  had  explained  the  meaning  of  the 
band  of  crepe  on  his  arm  and  they  had  expressed 
as  much  genuine  grief  for  his  bereavement  as  a 
north  countryman  would  get  into  a  lifetime  of 
mourning,  Madame  Defautin  stood  back  and  looked 
at  him. 

"You  come  alone?"  she  said.  "You  have  no 
lady  as  table  companion?  You  eat  by  yourself?" 

He  nodded  his  head. 

"Then  you  shut  your  eyes,  now,  quick  1  Tight  I 
And  I  show  you." 

She  took  him  by  the  elbows  and  turned  him 
round. 

"Now  look!"  said  she. 

And  he  looked. 

And  there  at  a  table,  reading  a  penny  magazine 
and  smoking  her  American  cigarettes  between  the 
omelette  and  the  tournedos,  was  Amber. 

"You  have  not  brought  her  here  this  three 
months.  Always  she  comes  alone.  Bad  Man  I" 

She  took  him  by  the  arm  and  whether  he  were 
willing  or  no,  led  him  across  the  room  until  he 
stood  before  the  table.  Then  Amber  looked  up. 


Chapter  IV:  Tournedos  and  Omelettes 

THE  last  time  they  had  met  was  when,  in  the 
belief  that  he  was  to  see  no  more  of  Jill, 
John  had  gone,  a  child  with  the  promise  of 
life  a  broken  toy  in  his  hands,  asking  her  to  return 
to  him. 

"I  wonder  does  the  man  exist  who  can  bear  dis- 
appointment without  becoming  like  that,"  she  had 
said  when  he  had  told  her  everything  and  with  that 
speculation — as  she  had  meant  to  do — had  sent  him 
back  to  Fetter  Lane  alone. 

He  had  not  seen  her  afterwards,  sitting  on  that 
mattress  bed  of  hers  on  the  drawing-room  floor, 
crying  out:  "Oh,  you  fool!  you  fool!"  and  beating 
her  hands  on  her  knees,  yet  glad  to  be  able  to  be 
so  great  a  fool  for  his  sake. 

For  the  quality  of  sacrifice  in  a  woman,  once  she 
comes  by  an  understanding  of  love,  is  something 
that  is  past  analysis  or  calculation.  Amber  had  let 
him  go  at  the  very  moment  when  she  had  realized 
she  needed  him  most  and  would  herself  have  been 
least  able  to  explain  the  anomaly  of  her  action. 

Love,  perhaps,  when  really  it  comes  to  you,  has 
little  to  do  with  possession.  It  is  a  sense  of  true 
worship,  and  once  it  listens  to  the  voices  of  desire, 
becomes  tainted  with  idolatry.  In  this  manner  go 
love  and  religion,  hand  in  hand  down  the  same 

24 


Tournedos  and  Omelettes          25 

path;  to  which  statement  if  you  are  one  of  those 
pessimists  of  life,  you  will  add — world  without  end 
— Amen,  and  settle  yourself  down  to  the  comfort 
of  your  shortcomings. 

Whether  it  is  because  women's  desires  are  of 
a  more  passive  nature — as  men  would  have  us  sup- 
pose and  women  are  only  too  ready  to  deny,  when 
the  talk  turns  upon  comparative  morality — or 
whether  it  is  that,  touching  Nature  so  closely,  their 
hands  have  grasped  the  fringe  of  the  garments  of 
God,  it  would  seem  they  are  the  more  liable  to 
the  instincts  of  true  worship  when  they  come  to 
the  altar  of  love.  They  would  have  their  man  a 
creature  of  such  nobility  as  none  could  assail  and 
half  the  time  they  are  tempting  him  to  frailty,  they 
are  hugging  the  hope  he  will  not  succumb. 

Amber  had  sent  John  off  to  Venice.  Out  of  some 
undreamt-of  fund  in  her  possession,  she  had  slipped 
a  sovereign  into  his  hand  to  make  up  the  deficit 
for  his  journey.  She  had  known  he  would  not 
accept.  But  the  mere  sight  and  touch  of  it,  coming 
from  her  with  all  her  nagging  debts  at  Barkers  and 
Deny  and  Toms,  she  knew  would  make  a  talisman 
of  it,  in  which  he  would  find  courage  and  strength 
to  go. 

And  when  once  the  hall-door  had  banged  and  she 
knew  he  was  gone  out  into  the  street,  away  down 
the  Earls  Court  Road,  straight  to  Venice,  she  had 
seated  herself  on  the  floor,  crying  out:  "Oh,  you 
fool!"  Had  he  come  back  then,  she  could  never 
have  believed  in  him,  in  life  or  in  love  so  passion- 
ately again. 


26        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It  was  here  she  stood — as  in  some  one  moment 
in  life  we  all  stand — at  the  gates  of  the  temple  of 
idolatry  and  God  knows  what  hazard  it  is  that 
flings  them  open  to  so  many,  while  it  keeps  them 
locked  and  bolted  to  those  few  who  sometimes  most 
eagerly  desire  to  pass  within. 

But  John  had  not  come  back.  She  had  seen  no 
more  of  him.  As  Madame  Defautin  had  truly 
said,  for  three  months  she  had  dined  alone  on  those 
occasions  when  she  came  to  Le  Pauvre  Monsieur. 
Apparently  then  she  had  seen  no  one  until  that 
moment  when  she  looked  up  from  her  penny  maga- 
zine and  found  John  standing  before  her. 

"Good-night!"  she  exclaimed  and  shut  her  maga- 
zine and  pressed  out  the  burning  end  of  her 
cigarette  because,  in  the  habit  of  her  memory,  she 
knew  he  did  not  like  smoking  at  meals  between 
courses  and  assumed  at  least  that  they  were  going 
to  dine  together. 

Madame  Defautin  left  them  then  with  such 
chuckles  of  satisfaction  as  if  she  and  she  alone  had 
accomplished  the  most  romantic  reunion  in  the 
world. 

For  a  while  Amber  could  only  sit  and  look  at 
John  and  John  at  her  as  though  an  absence  of 
three  months  must  have  left  indelible  traces  too 
astonishing  to  be  observed  all  at  once.  Then  sud- 
denly and  simultaneously  they  became  absurdly  shy. 
John  got  the  plait  in  his  spine  first.  She  followed 
at  once  with  the  plait  in  hers,  till  it  felt  to  both 
of  them  as  if  their  sensations  were  so  raveled  and 
knotted  there  was  no  untying  them  at  all. 


Tournedos  and  Omelettes          27 

There  was  no  fact  to  catch  hold  of.  All  they 
had  between  them,  spread  out  on  the  table  as  it 
were,  was  a  bundle  of  memories — days  they  had 
spent  in  the  country  together  at  odd,  inexpensive 
little  wayside  inns,  wherever  they  had  happened  to 
be  walking  along  the  road;  nights  when  she  had 
left  him  at  Fetter  Lane  to  walk  back  in  the  pouring 
rain  to  Earls  Court  because  the  last  'bus  had  been 
gone  for  hours  and  the  Tube  was  no  more  than 
a  tube  through  the  bowels  of  the  earth — these 
memories,  like  scraps  of  paper,  lay  on  the  table 
between  them.  And  it  was  as  if  the  door  were 
open  with  the  wind  blowing  through  and  all  they 
could  do  was  to  keep  on  clapping  a  hand  down 
on  the  table  to  prevent  the  pieces  of  paper  being 
blown  about  over  the  floor  where  everyone  could 
read  them.  Yet  again,  it  was  as  if  some  had 
escaped  them,  had  been  blown  away,  were  seen  and 
read  by  other  occupants  of  that  room  of  Monsieur 
Defautin;  and  then,  their  secret  being  known,  the 
blood  ran  up,  hot  into  their  cheeks,  when  they 
could  only  just  look  at  each  other  once  and  then 
look  away. 

At  last  she,  too,  caught  sight  of  the  band  of 
crepe  on  his  arm  and  there  was  a  fact  to  lay  hold 
of.  She  leant  forward  and  touched  it  gently  with 
her  hand.  That  was  all  the  question  she  needed 
to  ask. 

In  two  moments  the  plait  was  untied.  He  was 
telling  her  of  the  death  of  his  father  and  mother 
in  Venice.  Then  came  her  tournedos  and  his 
omelette  and  the  effect  super-imposed  by  that  three 


28        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

months'  absence  had  all  disappeared.  They  might 
have  been  going  back  to  Fetter  Lane  together  as 
soon  as  their  glasses  of  black  coffee  were  empty. 

"Didn't  you  feel  it  terribly?"  she  asked. 

He  looked  up  quickly  from  his  plate  with  that 
odd  expression  of  impulse  in  his  eyes  she  had  seen 
so  many  times,  most  clearly  of  all  when  first  he 
had  told  her  about  Jill  and  his  ideal. 

"No,  I  didn't  feel  it  like  that,"  he  said  em- 
phatically. "  'Never  hamper  youth,'  that's  what 
my  father  used  to  say.  'Cut  away  the  old  wood, 
not  the  new.'  And  that's  just  what  it  seemed 
like.  I'd  never  seen  death  before  and  I'd  thought 
it  would  be  horrible  to  look  at.  It  isn't.  Not  with 
old  people  anyhow.  Have  you  ever  pruned  a  rose 
tree — one  of  those  mornings  in  March  when  the 
sun  strikes  hot  for  the  first  day  in  the  year  and  it 
feels  as  if  Summer  had  somehow  slipped  its  leash 
and  was  rushing  out  to  meet  you  before  its  time? 
Have  you  ever  gone  out  into  the  garden  and  pruned 
rose  trees  then?" 

"Have  you  ever  seen  our  garden  in  Earls 
Court?"  she  asked  him.  "Can  you  imagine  the 
Summer  rushing  out  to  meet  you  in  those  gardens 
in  Hogarth  Road?  It  'ud  trip  up  over  a  clothes 
line  long  before  it  to  got  to  you — and  then  can't 
you  see  the  state  it  'ud  be  in?" 

He  laughed  because  she  could  laugh  when  he 
knew  what  gardens  really  meant  to  her. 

"Anyhow,  death's  just  like  pruning,"  he  went  on. 
"You  cut  off  a  bit  of  old  wood,  but  you  cut  it  off 
just  above  a  bud  and  instead  of  seeming  like  muti- 


Tournedos  and  Omelettes          29 

lation,  it's  like  setting  something  free.  I  suppose 
if  I  had  the  pruning  scissors  to  do  a  job  with  in 
Life,  I  should  be  exactly  like  a  woman  pruning  rose 
trees.  I  should  be  so  damned  sentimental  about 
the  old  wood  that  had  borne  its  blossoms,  I  couldn't 
have  the  heart  to  cut  it  away.  But  when  you  see 
a  gardener  who  knows  his  job,  just  snipping  it  off 
above  the  bud  so  clean  that  you  know  there  can't 
be  any  pain  about  it,  you  realize  how  pruning  is 
only  a  necessary  process  and  it's  the  tree  that 
matters,  not  the  branch.  It's  the  tree  that  lives 
and  all  the  gardener  cares  about  is  that.  If  it 
weren't  pruned,  it  'ud  turn  to  briar  and  dead  wood 
and  what  a  dearth  of  blooms  there'd  be  in  the 
market  place  then.  I  only  hope  the  gardener  who 
knows  his  job  will  have  the  pruning  of  me  when 
my  season's  over.  I  don't  want  to  be  left  to  the 
tender  mercy  of  some  old  maid  who  hasn't  the  heart 
to  part  with  me  and  just  prunes  me  to  the  senile 
paralysis  of  a  linger  death.  If  there's  going  to 
be  a  flower  on  my  branch  I  want  it  to  be  a  bloom 
worth  having  and  then  the  sharper  the  knife  the 
better,  and  in  the  proper  place  just  above  the  bud." 
It  was  odd  for  her  to  hear  him  talking  again 
like  that.  For  a  while  she  could  scarcely  believe 
her  senses.  No  one  else  ever  talked  to  her  that 
way.  They  might  speak  of  serious  matters,  but  if 
they  did,  they  spoke  direct.  Never  with  pictures. 
If  of  death,  then  of  something  that  appeared  in 
a  hearse  drawn  by  black  horses,  savoring  of  drawn 
blinds  and  musty  odors.  John  talked  of  death  and 
she  saw  it  no  less  plainly,  but  it  was  something  in 


3O       World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

a  garden  and  it  was  clean,  as  clean  as  the  shoot 
of  a  sapling  ash  and  if  there  were  any  odor  about 
it  at  all  it  was  a  perfume  of  clean  winds  across 
open  places.  Yet  with  all  that  sentiment  and 
symbolism,  he  gave  her  a  better  comprehension  of 
death  than  ever  she  received  from  others. 

Most  people,  talking  about  death,  wore  the 
mental  garb  of  an  undertaker.  They  followed  a 
hearse  instead  of  an  idea;  their  words  were  shovel- 
fuls of  earth  lifted  wearily  out  of  a  grave.  Or 
they  talked  like  doctors  cutting  their  sentences  with 
a  scalpel  and  disinfecting  all  traces  of  sentiment 
with  an  atmosphere  of  iodoform.  All  were  ex- 
tremely literal.  None  were  intensely  true. 

But  with  John  it  seemed  he  came  at  life  and 
no  less  convincingly,  by  paths  through  the  open 
ways  of  Nature,  when  life  and  even  death  tasted 
sweet,  for  which,  feeling  an  unaccountable  grati- 
tude, and  not  thinking  what  she  did,  she  suddenly 
leaned  forward  touching  his  hand  as  it  lay  there 
on  the  table.  It  was  only  when  she  felt  in  his 
fingers  the  half-expressed  inclination  to  draw  his 
hand  away  that  she  realized  what  she  had  done 
and  knew  all  that  must  have  happened  in  those  long 
three  months  while  he  had  been  away. 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  said.     "I — just  forgot." 

"Forgot  what?"  he  asked  her. 

"Forgot  that  you  were  going  to  be  married." 

"How  did  you  know  I  was  going  to  be  married?" 

Well — how  did  she  know?  She  did.  And  so, 
never  having  heard  that  cry  of  hers — "You  fool!" 
— he  started  off  like  his  summer  from  the  leash 


Tournedos  and  Omelettes          31 

and  told  her  all  the  wonderful  things  that  were 
going  to  happen  to  him.  It  might  indeed  have 
been  summer  escaped  from  the  leash  to  him.  It 
was  the  month  of  March  to  her. 


Chapter  V:   Old  Times 

SHE  listened  with  rapt  interest  in  her  eyes,  with 
sympathetic  noddings  of  her  head  to  the 
whole  story;  the  parting,  because  Jill  had 
believed  it  her  duty  to  marry  her  Mr.  Skipwith; 
the  first  meeting  again  in  Venice  when  his  mother 
had  tacitly  set  her  heart  upon  their  marriage;  then 
that  brief  story  of  deception  when  in  a  series  of 
letters  he  had  described  their  wedding  and  the  little 
red  house  in  Harefield  where  they  had  settled  down. 

"Why  Harefield?"  asked  Amber. 

"Well,  don't  you  remember,"  said  he,  "that  day 
you  and  I  walked  to  Jordan's  and  stayed  at  the 
Rest  House  and  they  said  we  ought  to  be  Friends 
and  I  didn't  understand  and  said  we  weren't  any- 
thing else  and  then  they  asked  us  to  go?" 

They  had  been  serious  all  through  dinner  till 
that  moment,  but  with  the  memory  of  this  amusing 
incident,  they  both  leant  back  in  their  chairs  and 
shouted  with  laughter.  Everyone  in  the  room 
turned  and  looked  at  them  till  Madame  Defautin, 
passing  behind  the  back  of  John's  chair,  patted  his 
head  and  leaning  over  the  table,  said: 

"Old  times — old  times  to  hear  you  laughing, 
you  two." 

And  that  stopped  their  laughter  with  a  snap. 
32 


Old  Times  33 

She  might  have  thrown  a  bucket  of  cold  water  into 
their  faces  with  less  effect. 

"But  what  had  Harefield  to  do  with  it?"  in- 
quired Amber. 

"Well — do  you  remember  that  little  inn  we 
stopped  at  for  lunch  and  had  bread  and  cheese  and 
shandy-gaff  and  the  woman  had  a  dribbly  nose  and 
kept  sniffling  and  saying:  'I  know  I  shall  sniff 
too  late  one  of  these  days.'  Don't  you  remember? 
Well— that  was  Harefield." 

She  looked  at  John  with  a  quick  glance  of  her 
eyes  and  then  she  said: 

"But  why  did  you  tell  her  Harefield?  That  was 
our  place." 

She  could  not  help  it.  There  was  no  time  to 
stop  herself.  The  words  had  sneaked  out  of  her 
lips,  just  when  the  door  of  her  mind  was  ajar. 
And  she  had  meant  to  keep  it  locked  so  tight. 

They  were  not  fair  words  to  say.  She  knew 
that.  For  as  John  had  described  themselves  at 
Jordan's  Rest  House,  so  they  were — merely 
friends.  They  had  never  said  they  loved  each 
other.  Frankly  she  had  admitted  that  the  day 
in  Fetter  Lane  when  first  he  had  told  her  about 

Jin. 

"You  don't  love  me?"  he  had  asked  her. 

And  after  the  instant's  pause,  she  had  said 
"No." 

"And  I've  never  told  you  that  I  loved  you?"  he 
had  continued. 

And  to  that,  without  pause  at  all,  she  had  re- 
replied:  "No — never,"  in  honesty  adding  later  on: 


34        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"If  it  doesn't  last,  then  nobody's  hurt  by  it;  if  it 
does,  then  let  it  last  as  long  as  it  can.  I  don't 
want  it  to  end  to-day — I  might  to-morrow.  I  might 
see  someone  I  liked  better." 

This,  right  or  wrong,  had  been  their  honest  re- 
lationship. This,  so  far  as  he  knew  or  she  meant 
him  to  know,  had  been  all  that  there  was  between 
them.  When  he  had  talked  to  her  of  the  person 
with  whom  one  knew  it  could  last,  always,  down 
avenues  of  time  that  had  no  ending,  then,  what 
she  had  seen  in  a  sudden  vision  had  perforce  been 
her  own  affair.  She  had  waited  till  the  hall  door 
banged,  on  that  occasion  when  he  had  come  back 
like  a  child  to  her  lap,  she  had  waited  till  the  hall 
door  banged,  before  she  had  let  that  cry  riot  in  the 
stampede  of  her  emotions  from  her  lips.  He  had 
never  heard  that.  Yet  now,  finding  in  a  careless 
moment,  finding  the  door  ajar,  these  words  had 
slipped  out  and  she  was  quick  to  be  after  them, 
to  catch  them  none  too  gently  by  the  arm  and  drag 
them  back. 

John  looked  over  the  table  at  her  as  though  she 
had  struck  her  hand  across  his  face. 

"Have  I  been  unfair — have  I  been  rotten  to 
you?"  he  asked. 

With  the  tone  of  his  voice  and  that  look  in  his 
eyes,  she  had  to  slam  the  door  then  and  swiftly 
turn  the  key  in  the  lock. 

"Good  Lord!  No!"  she  exclaimed.  "You? 
Rotten  to  me?  I  didn't  mean  anything  when  I  said 
that.  Pulling  your  leg — that's  all." 

He  did  look  at  her  then;  a  quick  and  he  believed 


Old  Times  35 

a  shrewd  scrutiny  of  her  eyes  that  had  simply 
laughed  back  into  his  own. 

"Go  on,"  she  said.  "All  those  letters.  And  your 
mother  believed  every  word  of  it.  Go  on." 

So  he  went  on  with  his  tale,  much  as  one,  think- 
ing he  has  heard  footsteps  on  a  lonely  road,  stops 
for  an  instant,  looks  round,  and  then  starts  on 
afresh. 

The  wish  not  to  give  her  pain  may  have  been 
part  of  his  belief  that  he  had  not.  In  that  state 
of  mind  when  a  man  is  performing  conjuring  tricks 
before  an  audience  every  one  of  which  knows  how 
the  trick  is  done,  there  is  no  one  more  capable  than 
a  woman  of  convincing  him  that  he  is  a  damned 
clever  fellow. 

Amber  convinced  him  that  it  mattered  little  to 
her  whether  he  had  written  of  Harefield  or  had 
chosen  the  domicile  of  their  married  life  to  have 
been  in  her  own  house  in  Hogarth  Road.  And  if 
any  man  says  he  was  a  fool,  let  him  think  back 
to  the  moments  in  his  own  life  when,  in  the  desire 
to  be  deceived,  he  has  listened  to  a  woman  telling 
him  black  was  white  and  replying: 

"Well,  now  you  come  to  point  it  out,  I  suppose 
it  must  be  so.  Funny!  I'd  never  realized  it  be- 
fore." 

In  the  eager  desire  to  tell  anyone  of  the  wonder 
of  life  that  had  come  to  him,  it  was  sheer  opulence 
of  good  fortune  to  have  found  one  who  could  ap- 
preciate to  the  finest  degree  of  an  angle  the  queer 
perspective  of  his  vision.  She  knew  it  would  have 
been  a  bitter  spoiling  of  that  pleasure  had  she  let 


36        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

him  see  for  one  instant  that  every  angle  had  its 
point  thrust  deep  in  her  heart. 

"I  was  only  pulling  your  legl"  she  laughed,  and 
on  he  went  in  happy  ignorance,  telling  the  wonder 
of  his  tale. 

And  when  it  was  all  finished,  there  was  this  new 
realization  to  confide  in  her;  this  new  discovery 
he  had  made  as  he  stood  at  the  door  of  his  rooms 
in  Fetter  Lane  and  wondered  what  the  devil  you 
can  say  to  a  lady  when  there  is  no  food  in  the 
house  and  the  coal  cupboard  on  the  landing  is 
empty. 

Besides  all  of  which,  there  were  the  immediate 
expenses  of  getting  married  and  to  a  lady  who 
might  reasonably  expect  a  ceremony  at  the  Bromp- 
ton  Oratory  if  they  weren't  too  busy  at  Farm 
Street. 

"What's  it  cost  just  to  get  married?"  he  asked. 

Of  a  sudden  Amber  was  laughing;  laughing  out 
of  the  very  secret  of  her  heart,  and  I  wager  there 
is  not  one  single  woman  reading  this  chronicle  who 
will  pause  for  an  instant  to  wonder  why. 

"Get  a  piece  of  paper,"  said  she.  "Come  on — 
get  a  piece  of  paper  and  let's  make  a  list." 

Any  woman  who  really  understands  a  man — and 
surprising  him  in  a  financial  embarrassment — will 
find  her  way  into  some  corner  of  his  heart,  the 
moment  she  brings  out  a  piece  of  paper  and  pro- 
ceeds to  make  a  list. 


Chapter  VI :   Where  to  Go  for  a  Honey- 
moon 

A  RING  will  cost  a   guinea,"   said  John   and 
called  Madame  Defautin  to  give  him  one 
of  those   incriminating   slips   of  paper   on 
which  in  figures  it  was  put  on  record  that  you  were 
a  gentleman,  however  poor. 

One  pound,  one  shilling,  he  wrote  at  the  top  of 
the  list  and  then  looked  up  at  Amber. 

"Don't  you  think  she'd  like  a  better  one  than 
that?"  she  inquired. 

John  set  out  to  tell  her  how  Mrs.  Rowse  had 
informed  him  on  one  occasion  that  her  own  wed- 
ding ring  had  cost  a  guinea  and  in  a  tone  of  voice 
which  implied  it  was  by  no  means  the  cheapest  you 
could  get. 

'Twas  eighteen  carats,"  said  John,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  when  you  had  said  that  about  a  gold  ring, 
there  was  not  much  left  to  talk  about  in  its  favor. 

"Anyhow,"  said  he,  "it's  the  first  item.  Better 
keep  it  down.  We  can  see  what  we've  got  to  spare 
as  we  go  along." 

"Yes,  but  how  much  have  you  got  altogether?" 
she  asked. 

He  had  made  this  calculation  already.  He  had 
made  this  calculation  in  the  train  up  from  Dover, 

37 


38        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

after  a  boy  had  come  round  with  tea  baskets  when, 
counting  the  silver  in  his  pocket,  he  had  thought 
it  better  to  go  without. 

"Without  pawning  anything  at  all,"  said  he, 
which  amounted  to  saying  that  the  sum  he  was  about 
to  declare  was  a  clear  net  possession,  "I've  got 
three  pounds,  two  and  sevenpence." 

Of  course  it  sounded  the  devil  of  a  lot.  Amber 
drew  a  deep  breath  when  she  heard  it.  Measured 
in  one  and  sixpenny  dinners  at  Monsieur  Defautin's, 
figure  to  yourself  the  weeks  it  would  last! 

"All  right,"  said  she,  "go  on.  You'll  have  to 
get  a  better  ring  than  that." 

With  a  superior  fund  of  common  sense  when  it 
came  to  the  making  of  lists,  John  was  not  so  sure 
of  that. 

"It's  an  unfortunate  fact,"  said  he,  "that  while  it 
is  a  sin  in  the  eyes  of  the  church  for  men  and 
women  to  dispense  with  the  Sacrament  of  Matri- 
mony, they  nevertheless  are  mulcted  of  some  con- 
siderable sum  before  its  observance." 

She  asked  him  what  "mulcted"  meant. 

"It's  making  you  pay  your  bill,"  said  he,  "with- 
out sending  you  details  of  cost.  You  probably  have 
to  pay  the  priest  a  guinea  and  it's  no  good  saying: 
'I'd  prefer  a  ceremony  for  ten  and  six.'  The  price 
is  fixed,  irrespective  of  cost.  You've  no  choice. 
You're  mulcted.  I  can't  explain  it  better  than  that. 
It's  a  charitable  word  that  covers  the  sins  of  all 
iniquitous  charges." 

Amber  wrote  down  a  guinea  without  any  more 
dispute  about  it  and  when  he  saw  those  figures 


Where  to  Go  for  a  Honeymoon     39 

down  in  their  nakedness  on  the  piece  of  paper,  it 
did  not  seem  so  iniquitous  after  all.  For  to  charge 
one  guinea  when  you  married  the  woman  you 
loved — which  surely  was  the  most  tremendous 
thing  in  the  life  of  any  man — seemed  ridiculous  be- 
side the  fact  that  a  box  at  the  opera  cost  three. 
Could  the  world  be  said  to  know  what  it  wanted 
when  it  had  such  a  preposterous  idea  of  values  as 
all  that? 

"The  cost  to  the  nation  of  an  Admiral  of  the 
Fleet,"  said  John  who,  when  once  a  thing  struck 
him  as  odd,  left  all  else  to  pursue  it,  "is  round 
about  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  and  the  public 
are  willing  to  pay  a  popular  cinema  actor  as  much 
by  the  week.  I  wonder  if  we  know  what  we  want. 
It  'ud  be  a  damned  good  thing  if  this  country  were 
ever  invaded.' 

"It  never  will  be,"  said  Amber.  "The  Admirals 
don't  look  at  it  that  way.  Come  on,  get  on  with 
the  list." 

Well,  there  was  the  wedding  breakfast,  which 
in  their  case  would  amount  to  lunch. 

"Not  here,"  said  she. 

"No.  I'd  thought  the  Alcazar  Restaurant,  but 
its  all  costing  more  than  I  thought,  so  it'll  probably 
be  Wrigglesworth's.  Even  at  Wrigglesworth's,  it 
wouldn't  be  a  penny  less  than  ten  and  six." 

She  put  down  ten  and  six. 

"Then  I  must  buy  Jill  some  flowers,  if  it's  only 
a  bunch  of  violets.  And  if  the  occasion's  to  be 
treated  with  any  respect,  I  shall  want  a  new  hat." 

They  looked  at  the  object  under  threat  of  con- 


4O        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

demnation,  hanging  on  the  peg  above  their  heads. 
Inclining  her  head  first  one  way  and  then  another, 
Amber  finally  wetted  her  pencil  and  wrote  down 
the  sum  of  eight  and  six. 

Out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye,  John  saw  that  sum 
added  to  the  list. 

"But  can  you  buy  respect?"  said  he  solemnly. 
"Other  people's  possibly — not  your  own.  And  even 
were  it  to  be  bought,  could  a  new  hat  be  considered 
to  be  the  best  expression  of  it?" 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  sympathetic  answer.  She 
looked  back  at  the  hat,  and  said  not  a  word. 

"Cross  out  the  hat,"  said  he,  "and  put  down  a 
shilling  for  violets." 

Following  this,  there  were  incidental  expenses; 
expenses  which  defined  themselves  not  so  much  in 
detail  as  in  a  nameless  fear  of  being  found  that  day 
confronted  with  a  situation  when  he  had  no  money 
in  his  pocket — and  this  more  for  Jill's  sake  than 
his  own. 

They  put  down  incidental  expenses  at  seven  and 
six. 

"You  might  as  well  have  got  a  new  hat,"  said 
Amber  who,  feeling  like  a  mother  as  well  as  all  the 
other  things  in  the  world  a  woman  does  feel,  wanted 
him  at  least  to  look  his  best.  Having  more  experi- 
ence of  the  world  than  she,  however,  he  preferred 
the  seven  and  six  in  his  pocket  than  reposing  on 
his  head. 

Then,  after  all  these  incidental  expenses  were 
accounted  for,  there  was  still  the  cost  of  the  honey- 
moon to  be  taken  into  consideration. 


Where  to  Go  for  a  Honeymoon     41 

"To  be  married  without  a  honeymoon,"  he  de- 
clared, uis  worse  than  baptism  without  a  christening 
mug.  I've  known  people  get  on  reasonably  well 
in  the  world  without  a  christening  mug,  but  I  don't 
think  she'd  like  the  idea  of  marriage  without  a 
honeymoon." 

By  a  honeymoon,  he  understood  a  sort  of  con- 
vention of  going  away.  People  had  to  go  away  so 
that  people  who  knew  should  not  see  them.  They 
would  know,  for  example,  in  Fetter  Lane  that  he 
was  going  to  be  married.  Mrs.  Rowse,  of  course, 
would  give  the  secret  away.  Nothing  in  human 
nature  could  prevent  her  from  doing  that.  She  was 
a  woman  and  women  would  peep  out  of  heaven  to 
see  a  wedding  go  by.  And  how  utterly  impossible 
it  would  be  for  him  to  return  to  his  rooms  with 
Jill,  after  they  had  left  the  church,  to  find  Mrs. 
Morrell  and  Mrs.  Brown  peeping  at  them  over 
the  bannisters.  No,  there  must  be  a  honeymoon. 

"But  where?"  asked  Amber,  holding  her  breath 
in  the  fear  that  he  might  choose  the  Rest  House  at 
Jordans  where,  being  more  than  friends,  they  would 
find  a  warmer  welcome  than  when  he  was  with  her. 

There  were  recognized  places,  John  informed 
her,  where  honeymoons  should  be  taken:  Paris, 
the  Riviera,  Como,  Lugano,  often  Venice.  Geo- 
graphically, it  seemed  these  places  had  been  created 
for  that  purpose.  Hotels,  there,  had  their  honey- 
moon suites.  Waiters  knew  and  took  things  for 
granted,  which,  when  you  had  got  over  the  first 
shock  of  their  knowledge,  was  so  much  better  than 
suspicion. 


42        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

To  have  a  honeymoon  in  England,  at  Brighton 
or  Eastbourne,  even  to  go  up  into  the  Lakes  was 
very  much  in  the  nature  of  participating  in  a  de- 
tective drama.  You  felt  you  were  pursued.  John 
Buchan's  "Thirty-nine  Steps,"  might  just  as  well 
has  been  written  about  a  honeymoon  couple  in 
civilized  England,  as  about  a  secret  service  agent 
whose  every  moment  was  significant  of  the  business 
he  had  in  hand. 

They  did  not  understand  honeymoons  in  Eng- 
land, mainly  because  they  did  not  understand  love. 
There  is  something  disgraceful  about  love  in  these 
Islands,  consequently  there  is  something  verging  on 
immorality  about  a  honeymoon.  You  have  escaped 
the  police,  and  that  is  about  all  that  can  be  said  for 
you.  Otherwise  it  is  incumbent  upon  you,  for 
decency's  sake  to  let  as  few  people  as  possible  know 
what  you  are  up  to.  This  is  certain,  you  cannot 
indulge  in  love  on  your  honeymoon  in  England. 
What  you  get  you  must  steal  and  God  help  you  if 
you  are  found  out.  Wherefore  you  sit  about  on 
verandas  or  try  and  escape  into  the  countryside  until 
the  night  comes  when  you  can  creep  out  of  your 
disguise  like  a  burglar  bent  upon  nefarious  purpose. 

But  the  nights  on  Como  and  Lugano  for  example, 
they  are  made  for  lovers  on  their  honeymoon.  The 
darkness  falls  over  those  still  waters,  not  so  much 
because  God  has  divided  the  twenty-four  hours  be- 
tween day  and  night,  as  to  serve  the  passionate  pur- 
pose of  two  beating  hearts.  And  when  at  morning, 
the  rising  sun  spreads  its  silken  rose  across  the 


Where  to  Go  for  a  Honeymoon     43 

mountains  when  the  snow  flushes  with  pink,  as 
though  the  sun  had  surprised  it  in  all  its  virgin 
innocence,  it  is  for  the  purposes  of  lovers  still. 

In  that  glow  of  light  they  wander  through  the 
valleys  and  up  the  mountainsides.  The  very  wind- 
flowers  grow  for  them.  The  day  is  their  very  own 
and  follows  the  night  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  even  love  must  have  its  rest;  must  bathe  in 
the  cold,  clear  water  of  the  stream,  must  run  and 
leap  in  all  the  exhaustless  energy  of  youth. 

Como!  Lugano!  These  were  places  for  a 
honeymoon !  But  as  John  looked  at  the  list,  mount- 
ing up  towards  that  three  pounds  two  and  seven- 
pence,  he  wondered  if  they  would  be  able  to  get 
much  further  than  Turnham  Green. 

"How  much  does  it  come  to  now?"  he  asked. 

With  all  her  ten  fingers,  Amber  made  it  out  to 
be  three  pounds  and  sixpence. 

"That  leaves  two  shillings  and  a  penny,"  said  she, 
with  scarce  an  effort  of  calculation. 

Turnham  Green,  then,  was  not  so  far  out.  It 
was  possible  to  conceive  it  as  no  further  than  Shep- 
herd's Bush.  But  though  there  might  be  a  whole 
world  of  difference  between  the  Lake  of  Como  and 
Shepherd's  Bush — and  judging  by  all  accounts  there 
was — there  would  be  no  difference  in  their  minds. 
John  believed  that.  They  were  lovers  on  the 
threshold  and  whether  the  door  opened  upon  the 
whole  vista  of  the  Italian  Alps  or  merely  into 
Ravenscourt  Park,  made  only  this  difference,  that 
they  saw  before  them  the  whole  glory  of  the  world, 


44        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

or  they  shut  their  eyes  to  the  dirty  pieces  of  paper 
and  all  the  sprawling  children  on  the  grass — they 
shut  their  ^yes  and  were  content  to  look  within. 

However,  it  was  not  really  so  bad  as  all  that. 
The  three  pounds  two  and  sevenpence,  as  has  been 
said  before,  was  a  net  possession.  There  still  re- 
mained the  whole  gamut  of  things  to  be  pawned. 

John  paid  the  bills  and  stood  up  from  the  table. 

"Come  on,"  he  said,  "let's  go  back.  I'll  put  out 
all  the  things  I  can  sell  and  I  bet  you  we'll  have 
enough  to  pay  for  a  cockade  for  the  coachman." 


Chapter  VII:  Pled  Piper  and  Vagabond 

WHILE  they  had  been  laughing  and  talking 
and  making  their  calculations,  it  had  all 
grown  in  Amber's  mind  to  seem  as  though 
no  barrier  had  ever  been  raised  between  them. 
John  had  this  quality,  not  so  much  a  quality  of 
destroying  the  realities  of  life  as  of  eliminating  the 
obvious.  To  be  with  him,  to  talk  to  him  was  to 
come  into  a  world  where  conventions  disappeared 
like  rabbits  out  of  a  conjuror's  hat.  You  might 
suppose  they  were  there,  but  it  was  an  indisputable 
fact  that  you  lost  sight  of  them. 

As  many  and  many  a  time  before,  Amber  left 
Le  Pawvre  Monsieur  that  evening  to  the  sound  of 
Monsieur's  and  Madame's  blessing — no  more  sin- 
cere because  the  bill  was  paid  and  there  existed  no 
obstacles  to  their  speedy  return.  It  was  not  until 
they  came  outside  into  the  street  and  turned  the 
old  familiar  way  towards  Fetter  Lane,  when  the 
chill  air  blew  on  her  cheeks  and  wakened  her  from 
her  dreaming;  to  be  exact,  not  until  she  had  just 
slipped  her  fingers  into  the  bend  of  John's  arm  and 
an  old  tune  had  risen  unconsciously  in  her  mind  to 
the  measure  of  their  steps  did  she  realize  what  she 
was  doing. 

Like  a  kind  of  will-o'-the-wisp,  he  had  led  her 
into  this  fatal  morass  of  her  dreams.  Like  a  Pied 

45 


46        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Piper,  he  had  played  tunes  in  her  ears,  not  to  decoy 
or  deceive,  but  simply  because  it  was  in  the  tips  of 
his  fingers  to  play  a  tune  wherever  he  went.  It  was 
not  music  for  everyone's  ears.  Only  the  few  there 
were  who  heard  it,  only  the  few  to  follow  where 
it  led.  But  it  seemed  to  her  then,  with  the  sound 
of  his  happy  tunes  still  dancing  in  her  ears,  that 
they  who  heard  must  follow  and  to  the  furthest  ends 
of  the  world. 

So,  she  realized  in  those  moments  as  they  walked 
back  to  Fetter  Lane,  so  must  Jill  have  listened;  so, 
too,  she  must  have  followed,  even  from  the  straight 
path  which  Duty  had  set  out  before  her. 

That  night  with  John  in  Venice,  coming  this  way, 
going  that,  across  the  Lagoon,  Amber  knew  well 
what  tunes  he  must  have  made  for  Jill  with  his 
playing.  But  she  had  been  wise  enough  to  throw 
all  the  troubles  of  Life  away  and  follow  the  Piper 
then  and  there.  She  had  known  the  quality  of  his 
music  while  Amber  had  let  him  go  by,  ignorant  of 
what  she  had  lost  until  she  heard  its  echoes  in  the 
deep  cloisters  of  her  heart. 

Well,  the  fruit  to  those  who  picked  it!  If  her 
heart  was  empty  of  music,  there  still  were  tunes 
left  to  whistle  on  the  lips.  He  might  call  for  her 
again  to  help  him  make  his  lists  and  though  it 
might  be  in  the  nature  of  helping  the  bride  to  dress 
for  the  bridegroom  who  has  your  heart  in  the  hol- 
low of  his  hands,  she  yet  would  be  ready  if  he 
needed  her.  And  half  the  tenderness  of  his  music 
was  that  it  had  the  note  of  his  wanting  in  every 
stave. 


Pied  Piper  and  Vagabond          47 

She  had  taken  her  fingers  on  the  instant  from 
his  arm  and,  all  the  way  back  to  Fetter  Lane,  had 
run  her  mind  up  and  down  these  minor  scales  of 
thought  until  they  stood  before  the  door  in  the 
shadow  of  Mrs.  Meakin's  shop.  Almost  for  granted 
she  had  taken  it  that  there  they  must  separate;  that 
upon  the  inside  of  that  door  stood  Jill  with  the 
rights  she  had  won  for  herself;  that  so  far,  to  the 
portal  she  might  come,  but  no  further.  Here  was 
her  mind  making  and  accepting  conventions  which 
it  seemed  to  her  must  be  apparent  even  to  him. 

But  they  were  not.  Just  as  though  the  world 
had  not  altered  one  whit  for  either  of  them,  he 
pulled  the  key  out  of  his  pocket  and  slipped  it  into 
the  door. 

"I  haven't  got  a  bit  of  coal  in  the  cupboard," 
said  he,  "but  there's  an  old  packing  case.  We  can 
break  that  up.  It  isn't  really  so  cold  as  that  the 
look  of  something  burning  won't  warm  things  up 
a  bit."  And  he  held  open  the  door  for  her  to  pass 
through. 

She  stood  where  she  was,  out  there  on  the  pave- 
ment and  she  shook  her  head. 

"I'm  not  coming  up,"  she  said,  and  tried  her 
best  to  say  it  as  though  on  the  whole  it  were  too 
much  trouble  to  mount  that  flight  of  stairs. 

"Why  not?"  he  asked  in  genuine  surprise;  gen- 
uinely at  a  loss  to  understand  what  should  make 
her  refuse  when  they  had  been  such  good  company 
over  the  tournedos  and  the  omelette  and  she  had 
shown  so  much  sympathy  with  his  financial  difficul- 
ties as  actually  to  get  a  piece  of  paper  and  make 


48        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

a  list.  "Why  not?"  he  repeated,  for  never  had 
they  been  more  than  friends  and  in  that  chance 
meeting  at  Le  Pauvre  Monsieur  it  had  seemed  to 
him  what  a  jolly  place  a  world  was,  where  you 
could  fall  in  with  a  friend,  a  close,  a  dear  friend, 
and  go  on  for  a  mile  or  two  down  the  road,  talking 
and  laughing  as  though  the  essence  of  life  were  con- 
stancy and  nothing  could  really  change. 

Then,  suddenly,  here  she  was  stopping  abruptly 
no  sooner  had  their  feet  fallen  in  step.  She  would 
moreover  vouchsafe  no  answer  to  his  question, 
wherefore  again  and  for  the  third  time,  he  asked : 
"Why  not?" 

Then  she  shrugged  her  shoulders  and  laughed, 
the  little  odd  laugh  a  woman  drops  like  a  pebble 
into  the  deep  well  of  your  heart;  a  little  laugh  that 
is  weighted  with  tears  but  which,  still  like  the  pebble, 
is  polished  and  shines  in  your  eyes  as  it  falls,  shines 
with  her  purpose  of  not  letting  you  see  one  of  the 
tears  it  contains. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  said  she.  "P'raps  I  don't 
want  to.  P'raps  I'd  rather  go  back  to  Earls  Court." 

Had  John  not  been  so  amazed  with  a  sudden 
revelation  of  life,  he  might  not  so  obediently  have 
taken  the  hand  she  held  out  to  him.  As  it  was,  in  a 
strange  bewilderment,  he  just  shook  it  and  let  it 
fall  as  she  went. 

"Bless  you,"  she  said  abruptly,  and  turning 
quickly,  without  once  looking  back,  walked  with 
determined  steps  down  the  Lane  towards  Fleet 
Street. 

He  stood  there,  watching  her,  somehow  aware 


Pied  Piper  and  Vagabond         49 

that  her  looking  back  would  be  a  symbol,  a  sign 
that  Life  had  not  really  changed  after  all. 

"It's  just  an  idea  she's  got,"  he  kept  on  telling 
himself.  "Just  an  idea.  She  thinks  something  has 
come  between  our  being  friends.  The  circum- 
stances have  changed,  but  not  the  friendship.  She 
doesn't  realize  that.  Circumstances  are  always 
changing.  Life  isn't.  Life's  always  the  same. 
When  she  gets  far  enough  away,  she'll  realize  how 
silly  it  is.  Then  she'll  turn.  Then  she'll  come  back. 
Then  she'll — come  back.  Then — she'll — come — 
back " 

She  had  gone.  The  darkness  of  the  narrow  lane 
had  swallowed  her  up.  In  the  perspective  of  dis- 
tance, exaggerated  in  the  gloom,  the  houses  had 
leant  together  and  hidden  her  from  sight.  She  had 
gone  and  John,  still  like  a  child,  was  taking  into 
his  heart,  his  first  lesson  of  Life. 

It  was  in  more  than  circumstance  that  there  was 
to  be  found  the  element  of  change.  Amber  had 
changed.  He  scarcely  dared  to  think  how  deep  that 
change  had  been.  But  whatever  it  was,  he  was  no 
longer  blind  to  it  now.  She  had  not  looked  back. 
In  the  old  order  of  things,  had  they  ever  been 
heated  in  dispute  and  parted  in  anger,  she  would 
have  looked  round  before  a  dozen  steps  had  sepa- 
rated them.  On  the  fly-leaf  of  one  of  the  books 
on  her  bookshelves,  there  was  to  be  found  the  in- 
scription : 

AMBER 

The  night  of  terrible  row  at  La  Pauire  Monsieur 

from  John. 


50        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It  was  a  copy  of  Sterne's  "Sentimental  Journey," 
and  had  been  quite  sufficient  in  a  cheap  leather 
binding  to  terminate  the  most  violent  quarrel  they 
had  ever  had. 

Now,  she  had  gone,  saying,  "Bless  you,"  and  she 
had  not  looked  back  at  all. 

Amber  then  had  changed  and  for  one  sudden 
moment  in  his  heart,  leaped  the  thought  that  he 
would  run  after  her,  insist  upon  her  return  and 
try  in  some  way  to  make  amends.  But  even  so 
soon  as  this,  the  lesson  he  had  learnt  forced  itself 
into  practice.  He  knew  that  would  be  nothing  but 
folly.  That,  he  knew  now,  would  be  playing  with 
Life. 

Then  he  had  changed  as  well;  for  at  other  times 
the  thought  would  have  needed  no  more  than  to 
stir  in  his  mind  and,  before  it  had  reached  his  heart, 
he  would  have  acted  on  it. 

He  had  changed — then  had  Jill  changed,  too? 

Of  a  sudden  it  came  to  him  that  the  whole  of 
his  world  had  altered.  He  had  left  the  City  of  his 
birthright.  He  had  closed  the  gates  and  set  forth. 
His  dwelling  place  no  longer  was  in  the  City  of 
Beautiful  Nonsense. 

It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  he  would  ever 
forget  that  birthright  of  his  riches  of  which  there 
was  testimony  in  the  records  of  his  parish  church. 
It  remained  to  be  seen  whether  he  had  locked  the 
City  gates,  no  less  than  whether,  as  he  went  upon 
his  journeys  he  would  tire  at  last  of  its  burden  and 
fling  away  the  key. 

For  now  he  had  become  a  traveler  through  coun- 


Pied  Piper  and  Vagabond         51 

tries  where,  at  every  turn  of  the  road,  the  vista 
spread  before  him  in  all  the  variety  of  change. 
Amber  had  shown  him  this.  He  had  become  a 
traveler,  that  was  the  truth  of  it — a  vagabond  in 
the  world  of  Wonderful  Reality. 


Chapter  VIII:    The  Answer  to  a  Prayer 

IT  had  been  understood  before  they  left  Venice, 
that  JiH  was  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  and, 
meeting  John  oa  the  morning  after  his  return, 
was  to  report  the  result  to  him  in  Kensington 
Gardens. 

There  are  places  ia  Kensington  Gardens  where 
the  most  secret  of  meetings  can  take  place  with  com- 
parative safety.  No  woman  knows  where  they  are, 
but  she  can  always  take  you  there  by  chance.  When 
Jill  told  him  they  would  be  quite  safe  in  the 
Gardens,  she  did  not  mean  that  she  knew  of  such 
places.  It  was  merely  a  woman's  implicit  faith  in 
that  God  of  Fortune  who  watches  over  all  such 
matters  as  these. 

Their  meeting,  doubtless,  was  a  simple  affair.  It 
is  an  easy  matter  to  deceive  your  parents  when  the 
greater  part  of  their  every  day  is  already  spent  in 
deceiving  themselves.  It  was  the  resolution  to  make 
a  clean  breast  of  it  which,  when  once  she  had  it 
face  to  face,  was  fraught  with  all  the  terrors  and 
sensations  of  an  earthquake  in  Prince  of  Wales's 
Terrace. 

The  'heart  of  her  courage  had  been  high  that 
night  o*  the  Lagoon,  when  John  had  touch  of  her 
hand.  As  well  as  that,  Venice  is  some  distance 
from  Kensington  High  Street  and  though  you  can 

52 


The  Answer  to  a  Prayer  53 

be  transported  there  in  the  space  of  thirty-six  hours, 
it  is  a  city  of  dreams  you  are  exchanging  for  a 
crowded  world  of  facts.  She  thought  of  the 
Lagoon,  with  the  light  on  its  opal  water  and  she 
looked  out  into  the  muddy  streets  of  London.  She 
listened  for  the  long-drawn  cry  of  the  Gondolier's 
"Oho,"  and  heard  the  motor  horns  and  strident 
cab  whistles.  She  felt  John's  kisses  hot  on  her  lips 
and  had  found  her  mother  leaning  a  cold  nose 
against  her  cheek  to  greet  her  upon  her  return. 

Besides  all  of  which  it  was  always  so  much  easier 
for  Jill  to  tell  lies  to  her  people.  Doubtless,  they 
asked  and  fervently  for  the  truth,  but  it  was  only 
a  lie  they  would  properly  have  understood.  And 
somehow  one  always  finds  it  easier  to  talk  to  people 
about  things  they  understand.  Understanding  is 
a  sweet  gift  and  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace 
was  as  rare  and  brittle  as  the  rarest  of  old  china. 
What  there  was  of  it  was  locked  in  a  cupboard  of 
her  mother's  heart  and  if  it  were  ever  taken  out  for 
service  was  sure  to  be  broken  at  the  first  touch. 
It  might,  indeed,  be  supposed  that  as  the  years 
passed  by,  in  their  struggle  for  appearances,  Mrs. 
Dealtry  had  long  ago  put  away  the  key.  There 
were  moments  when  Jill  caught  glimpses  of  that 
rare  gift  behind  the  beveled-glass  of  conventionality, 
but  the  cupboard  door  was  never  opened.  Her 
fingers  had  never  touched  the  treasures  it  contained. 

So  that  resolution,  which  had  been  easy  enough 
to  make  in  Venice,  took  upon  itself  the  suggestion 
of  breaking  open  cupboard  doors  and  smashing 
priceless  china  when  once  she  had  come  home.  In 


54       World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Venice  it  had  seemed  the  only  thing  to  be  done, 
to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it;  to  declare  that  this 
overwhelming  consciousness  of  love  which  had  come 
to  her  with  the  dying  words  of  Thomas  Grey  was 
greater  than  duty  or,  if  in  the  light  of  duty  they 
alone  could  see  things  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Ter- 
race, then,  the  greatest  duty  of  all. 

"Make  your  lives  out  of  love  as  I  have  made 
mine — make  your  children  out  of  love,  as  I  have 
made  mine — make  your  work  out  of  love,  as  I  have 
made  mine." 

It  sounded  no  less  wonderful  in  Kensington  than 
it  had  done  in  Venice.  Indeed,  it  was  rather  that 
it  sounded  more  wonderful,  so  much  more  wonder- 
ful in  that  gray  atmosphere  of  duty,  as  to  be  almost 
untrue. 

No  one  sets  a  jewel  on  a  dust-heap  and,  when 
by  chance  you  find  one  lying  in  the  cinders,  it  has 
all  the  appearance  of  being  unreal.  A  piece  of 
common  glass  reflecting  the  sun  might  easily  glitter 
as  bright. 

Jill  knew  in  terms  of  duty  that  it  was  the  greatest 
duty  of  all;  but  in  the  long  contemplation  of  that 
marriage  of  convenience  which  had  awaited  her,  this 
communion  of  love  seemed  too  much  of  idealism 
in  a  world  of  ordinary  possibities.  Life  did  not 
arrange  itself  like  that  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Ter- 
race. Appearances  flanked  you  on  either  side.  It 
was  what  things  looked  like,  not  what  they  were. 
Everywhere  it  was  the  glitter  of  the  common  glass; 
for  the  sun,  shining  as  it  does  upon  the  just  and  the 
unjust,  in  its  full  glory  upon  the  Venetian  canals 


The  Answer  to  a  Prayer  55 

and  in  oblique  and  narrow  shafts  for  one  hour  of 
the  day  into  the  houses  of  Prince  of  Wales's  Ter- 
race, a  piece  of  common  glass  is  as  good  any  time 
as  the  rarest  jewel  on  the  dust-heap  which  most  of 
us  make  of  our  lives. 

Neither  Mr.  nor  Mrs.  Dealtry's  conception  of 
duty  was  anything  like  this,  which  in  a  sudden  vision 
had  come  to  Jill.  There  was  her  brother  to  be 
sent  to  Eton,  not  so  much  because  you  learnt  more 
at  Eton  than  at  a  common  Grammar  school,  but 
because  it  caught  a  glitter  from  the  sun  on  the  edu- 
cational dust-heap,  dazzling  the  eyes  of  all  and 
sundry  who  passed  by. 

In  addition,  there  were  a  thousand  and  one  little 
things  in  the  home  which  a  marriage  with  her 
father's  friend  would  make  the  easier.  Jill  knew 
well  enough  the  consternation  which  the  announce- 
ment of  her  penniless  marriage  would  make.  They 
did  not  even  know  John ;  had  never  met  him.  They 
had  not  heard  the  terrible  secret  of  that  neighbor- 
hood in  which  he  lived  and  to  which  he  proposed 
to  take  her. 

All  they  knew  was  that,  without  introduction — 
other  than  that  of  St.  Joseph  who  may  be  canon- 
ized in  Rome,  but  is  a  social  nonentity  in  Kensing- 
ton— she  had  made  his  acquaintance  at  Benediction 
in  Sardinia  Street  chapel,  that  later,  they  two  had 
met  in  Kensington  Gardens,  in  possession  of  which 
knowledge,  they  had  firmly  forbidden  her  to  see  him 
again. 

All  that  had  occurred  since  then  was  no  easy 
confession  to  make.  Her  duty,  however,  it  was  to 


56        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

make  it.  She  fully  recognized  that.  Through  no 
direct  persuasion  of  John's  had  it  been,  but  in  a 
sudden  glimpse  of  her  own  vision  that  she  had 
realized  the  higher  sense  of  duty  in  the  words  of 
Thomas  Grey's  benediction.  She  must  explain  it 
all  to  these  two  people  who,  by  some  strange  chance 
which  she  could  not  understand,  happened  to  be  her 
parents.  But  how  it  was  to  be  accomplished,  how 
even  begun,  was  more  than  she  could  imagine. 
Sitting  on  the  edge  of  her  bed  that  first  night  after 
her  return  from  Venice,  she  stared  at  the  pattern 
of  the  carpet  until  its  wreaths  and  its  lines  and 
its  circles  all  became  symbolic  of  the  confusion  of 
her  thoughts. 

Two  days  were  left  her  before  John  returned,  a 
night  as  well  before  that  hour  of  eleven  when  they 
were  to  meet  in  the  Gardens.  It  was  time  enough. 
One  sentence  could  begin  it  all  and,  once  begun,  ques- 
tions would  be  so  swift  that  in  half  an  hour  at 
most,  they  would  know  the  full  substance  of  the 
truth. 

"I  am  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Skipwith." 

She  could  begin  it  with  such  an  unadorned  state- 
ment as  that.  There  was  no  mistaking  what  it 
meant.  It  was  to  the  point  and  would  save  a  host 
of  questions  which  *  less  definite  beginning  would 
be  sure  to  aggravate.  She  tried  it  aloud  to  her- 
self: 

"I'm  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Skipwith,"  and 
said  it  emphatically  as  though  both  her  mother  and 
father  were  there  in  the  room  to  hear  it,  immedi- 
ately after  which  came  that  hot  rush  of  blood  with 


The  Answer  to  a  Prayer  57 

the  fear  that  someone  might  have  been  listening. 
She  crept  to  the  door  and  looked  out.  There  was 
no  one  to  be  seen. 

It  had  grown  no  easier  next  morning  at  day- 
break at  which  hour  she  was  awake  and  lay  turning 
it  over  in  her  mind.  All  the  troubles  and  problems 
of  her  life  were  associated  with  that  crack  in  the 
plaster  of  the  ceiling  which  had  drawn  itself  out 
into  the  grotesque  line  of  an  old  man's  face.  He 
looked  that  morning  as  though  he  were  laughing 
behind  his  beard;  as  though  he  knew  far  better  thr.n 
she  did  what  would  be  the  end  of  it  all.  She  hated 
men  with  beards.  He  reminded  her  that  morning 
of  a  friend  of  her  father's  on  the  Stock  Exchange. 
There,  in  that  caricature  on  the  ceiling,  he  seemed 
to  be  saying  just  the  very  things  her  father's  friend 
would  say  about  the  prospects  of  such  a  match. 

And  after  all,  perhaps  that  opening  sentence  was 
a  little  startling.  She  ought  to  break  it  more  gently 
than  that.  In  one  blow  it  was  crushing  all  their 
hopes  and  destroying  Ronald's  chance  of  Eton. 

St.  Joseph  might  help  her — poor  St.  Joseph.  She 
went  to  the  Carmelite  church  after  breakfast  and 
for  an  hour,  with  her  face  buried  in  her  hands,  she 
prayed  before  his  altar. 

Prayer  is  an  odd  thing.  There  is  something  of 
necromancy  in  it.  You  can  pray  standing  up  in 
the  street;  you  can  pray  sitting  down  in  a  'bus.  The 
church  prefers  you  to  kneel,  and  whenever  possible, 
before  an  altar.  But  until  you  realize  that  it  would 
be  acceptable  to  offer  up  a  prayer  on  a  merry-go- 
round,  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  kneel  at  altar  steps. 


58        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Jill  prayed  all  the  way  along  Kensington  High 
Street  and  up  Church  Street  to  the  very  door.  By 
the  time  she  found  herself  kneeling  at  the  foot  of 
St.  Joseph's  altar,  she  realized  there  was  nothing 
more  to  be  said.  She  had  finished  her  prayers. 
They  were  lifting  up  above  the  house-tops  with  the 
clatter  of  'buses,  carts  and  hooting  motors,  coming 
to  the  ears  of  God  with  the  throb  of  life  in  them, 
having  none  of  that  sanctity  of  appearance  with 
which  the  Church  takes  half  the  human  nature  out 
of  a  prayer.  She  had  said  them  all.  Nothing  re- 
mained but  to  wait  for  their  answering. 

Half  the  people  you  see  with  faces  buried  in 
their  hands  in  church  have  said  their  prayers  when 
they  were  in  their  bath,  or  while  eating  their  bacon 
at  breakfast.  They  are  kneeling  there  in  the  silent 
church  waiting  for  an  answer. 

The  only  answer  St.  Joseph  gave  to  Jill  that 
morning  in  the  Carmelite  Church  was  this:  "Go 
back  home  and  say  the  first  thing  that  comes  on  to 
the  tip  of  your  tongue.  It  has  got  to  be  said.  Say 
what  comes." 

This  may  sound  colloquial  for  any  canonized 
saint  of  the  Holy  Church.  Nevertheless,  it  is  the 
sort  of  friendly  way  a  saint  will  answer  your 
prayer  if  it  so  happens  you  are  splashing  about  in 
your  bath  or  are  not  oppressed  by  the  appearance 
of  sanctity  when  you  offer  it.  It  may  be  well,  in- 
deed, to  say  one's  prayers  in  the  Latin  tongue  or 
in  the  beautiful  if  pedantic  English  of  the  Jacobean 
age,  but  you  must  expect  the  answer  to  be  pitched 
in  similar  fashion  when  you  receive  it. 


The  Answer  to  a  Prayer  59 

And  this  answer  of  St.  Joseph's,  if  you  follow 
it  closely,  was  really  only  what  Jill  was  saying  to 
herself.  But  then  that  is  the  answer  to  a  prayer. 
You  want  a  certain  thing — very  well,  you  pray  for 
it.  You  want  a  certain  reply — very  well,  you  answer 
it.  The  strange  thing  that  has  happened  which  you 
do  not  realize  is  this:  By  the  submission  of  your 
desire  in  that  attitude  of  mind,  you  have  found 
courage. 

Prayer  is  a  breath — a  breath  before  you  leap. 
If  you  do  not  find  courage,  you  find  no  answer  to 
your  prayer  and  for  the  simple  reason  that  you  have 
neither  the  pluck  nor  the  faith  to  answer  it  for 
yourself. 

On  that  morning,  Jill  had  found  courage.  In  the 
evening  after  dinner,  when  they  were  sipping  their 
coffee  and  Ronald  had  been  persuaded  without  con- 
viction that  bed  was  the  only  place  for  a  boy  of 
his  age,  she  said  suddenly: 

"Mother,  I'm  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Skipwith." 

Now  St.  Joseph  had  never  put  those  words  into 
her  head.  They  had  been  there  all  the  time.  All 
she  had  found  at  the  foot  of  his  altar  had  been  the 
courage  to  say  them. 


Chapter  IX :  A  Clean  Breast  of  It 

MRS.  ROWSE  had  an  expression  alluding  to 
a  feather  and  commenting  in  various  ways 
upon  its  power  of  knocking  her  down. 

"If  she'd  taken  a  feather,"  she  once  said  to  John, 
recounting  to  him  an  intimate  little  story  of  a 
neighbor  in  Peabody  Buildings.  "If  she'd  taken  a 
feather  and  knocked  me  over  the  'ead  with  it,  she 
couldn't  'ave  done  me  more  damage  than  if  she'd 
'it  me  with  a  pair  o'  tongs." 

You  need  nothing  more  graphic  to  describe  a 
state  of  surprise  than  that  and  it  requires  an  ex- 
pression with  something  of  this  nature  about  it  to 
give  an  idea  of  the  effect  of  Jill's  statement  upon 
her  father  and  mother  that  evening. 

In  the  act  of  raising  his  cup  of  coffee  to  his  lips, 
Mr.  Dealtry  stopped.  Every  action  of  his  muscles, 
facial  and  otherwise,  were  arrested,  until  remember- 
ing, even  in  so  extreme  a  moment  as  this,  that  his 
drink  was  getting  cold,  he  emptied  the  cup,  but  never 
moving  his  eyes  from  his  daughter's  face  till  the 
dregs  of  the  coffee  were  in  his  mouth.  Then  he 
put  down  his  cup  with  a  grimace. 

To  a  woman,  however,  in  a  crisis  bodily  com- 
forts mean  little  or  nothing  at  all.  Even  personal 

60 


A  Clean  Breast  of  It  61 

appearances  may  go  to  the  wall.  Mrs.  Dealtry 
pushed  cup  and  saucer  away  from  her  and  stared 
for  moments  that  seemed  to  Jill  eternal,  at  this  un- 
natural daughter  of  hers. 

"You're  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Skipwith?"  she 
repeated. 

"No,"  said  Jill. 

"Then  who  are  you  going  to  marry,  please?"  she 
inquired. 

And  that  was  as  much  like  a  woman  as  a  brass 
farthing  is  like  a  piece  of  brass.  For  this  was  an 
assumption  which  no  man  would  have  arrived  at 
and  certainly  not  in  that  space  of  time.  There  was 
no  logical  or  inevitable  sequence  about  it.  Pure 
reason  could  not  alone  have  brought  you  to  such 
a  conclusion.  The  practical  deduction  was  that 
marriage  and  more  particularly  marriage  with  Mr. 
Skipwith  did  not  appeal  to  her.  Indeed,  to  Mr. 
Dealtry  this  was  nothing  less  than  a  putting  of  fool- 
ish ideas  into  his  daughter's  head. 

"Why  do  you  suggest  it's  conceivable  she  should 
want  to  marry  anybody  else?"  he  ejaculated. 
"There's  not  another  girl  she  knows  has  the  chance 
of  a  match  like  this." 

He  flung  himself  to  his  feet  and  stamped  to  the 
fireplace.  It  was  inconceivable.  As  a  statement  of 
fact,  he  refused  to  accept  it.  No  one,  in  or  out 
of  their  senses,  refused  participation — what  is  more 
the  participation  of  a  wife — in  an  income  of  six 
or  seven  thousand  a  year.  For  the  participation  of 
a  wife,  as  he  understood  it,  was  not  a  somnolent 
partnership  and,  as  has  been  suggested  before,  in 


62        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

this  case  not  only  Jill  herself,  but  the  whole  family 
would  profit  by  the  alliance. 

After  all,  one  had  to  live.  He  remarked  this 
fact  as  though  it  might  have  escaped  their  notice. 
He  elaborated  upon  it.  One  had  to  live,  he  said, 
as  became  one's  social  status.  If  Prince  of  Wales's 
Terrace  was,  so  to  speak,  the  mise-en-scene,  or  if 
they  liked  it  better — which  inferred  that  he  was 
by  no  means  spluttering  for  a  choice  of  words — 
if  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace  was  the  social  at- 
mosphere natural  for  them  to  breathe,  it  was  their 
duty  to  the  common  laws  of  existence  to  keep  them- 
selves in  that  atmosphere  at  all  costs. 

"The  survival  of  the  fittest,"  he  exclaimed  and, 
with  a  gesture,  took  a  hand  out  of  his  pocket,  hold- 
ing it  before  him  as  though  he  had  the  commodity 
there  in  his  fingers. 

"I  said  we  must  keep  ourselves  there  at  all  costs," 
he  went  on,  believing  in  the  absence  of  opposition 
that  not  only  was  he  being  listened  to,  but  that  his 
words  were  carrying  a  weight  which,  if  his  wife 
only  allowed  him  to  go  on  long  enough,  would  bear 
down  every  obstacle  in  Jill's  mind. 

"But  when,"  he  proclaimed,  "when  the  means  to 
be  employed  are  as  straightforward,  as  honest  and 
legitimate  as  these,  it's  not  merely  flying  in  the  face 
of  Providence,  it's  flouting — flouting  the  laws,  the 
laws  that  have  made  us  what  we  are;  the  laws  that 
have  made  England  the  greatest  and  the  richest 
nation  in  the  world.  It  isn't  so  much  the  money 
I'm  thinking  about.  Six  or  seven  thousand  a  year, 
of  course,  is  not  an  income  to  be  ignored;  but  I'm 


A  Clean  Breast  of  It  63 

not  thinking  about  the  money.  We  owe  a  duty  to 
ourselves,  we  owe  a  duty  to  society.  It's  incumbent 
on  everyone  to  keep  up  their  standard.  For  even 
one  individual  to  lower  his  standard" — he  looked 
at  the  glass  of  liquor  brandy  standing  untouched 
beside  his  empty  coffee  cup — uis  insensibly  to  lower 
the  standards  of  all  about  him." 

He  leant  forward  and  picked  up  the  glass,  drain- 
ing its  contents  at  one  draught.  As  the  liquid  ran 
warm  down  his  throat,  he  was  convinced  that  he  was 
right.  This  was  their  standard.  They  must  keep 
it  up. 

"If  you'd  studied  sociological  problems,  Jill," 
he  began  again,  but  by  this  time,  having  closely 
studied  the  expression  on  her  daughter's  face,  Mrs. 
Dealtry  had  no  further  need  for  the  scientific  side 
of  the  question.  There  was  one  thing  she  wanted 
to  know  before  the  matter  could  properly  be  dealt 
with  and  no  answer  but  that  to  the  question  she  had 
put  already  would  satisfy  her. 

"If  you're  not  going  to  marry  Mr.  Skipworth,  Jill," 
she  repeated,  "then  who  are  you  going  to  marry?" 

Mr.  Dealtry  dived  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and 
chucked  back  his  head  in  despair.  This  was  blunt- 
ing the  point  of  every  single  thing  he  had  said. 
Women  with  all  their  impulses  and  their  intuitions 
were  fools  at  times.  The  girl  was  just  shying  at 
marriage  with  a  man,  not  thirty  but  certainly  nearly 
thirty  years  older  than  herself.  All  girls  shied  at 
marriage,  unless  its  conditions  were  so  wrapped  up 
and  concealed  in  the  vapors  of  Romance  that  they 
had  no  means  of  seeing  the  semblance  of  the  state 


64        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

upon  which  they  were  entering.  And  it  was  up  to 
parents  who  had  any  of  the  sense  of  duty  owing  to 
their  children,  to  make  them  understand  what  that 
state  was.  It  was  fairly  obvious  to  him  that  Ro- 
mance had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  There  was  no 
Romance  in  marriage.  His  own  wife  would  be  the 
first  to  agree  to  that  and  so  would  every  other 
sensible  married  couple  he  had  ever  met. 

Love  played  a  part.  He  was  not  so  wanting  in 
imagination  as  to  deny  that.  He  loved  his  wife. 
They  had  been  together  for  twenty-three  years  and 
it  would  be  conspicuously  foolish  of  him  if  he  did 
not.  The  habit  of  close  companionship  over  a 
period  of  time  like  that  was  bound  to  promote  affec- 
tion. It  would  be  something  of  a  tragedy  if  it  did 
not  and  in  their  social  atmosphere  and  with  their 
standards,  tragedies  were  things  to  be  avoided. 
Tragedies  were  emotional  and  of  all  things,  God 
forbid,  that  any  Englishman  should  be  that! 

What  his  feeling  had  been  when  first  he  had 
married  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  argu- 
ment. Every  man  felt  the  same.  It  was  perhaps 
fortunate  on  the  whole  that  the  women  they  mar- 
ried did  not.  He  had  married  when  he  was  thirty- 
three  and  knew  then  by  experience  the  ephemeral 
value  of  whatever  it  was  he  may  have  felt.  To  be 
perfectly  candid,  after  all  these  years,  he  had  well- 
nigh  forgotten  what  it  was.  To  hark  back  to  and 
act  upon  past  sensations  might  be  amusing  to  a 
foreigner,  but  then  he  had  always  thanked  God 
he  was  an  Englishman. 

They  had  got  through  with  it  anyhow  and  with- 


A  Clean  Breast  of  It  65 

out  any  great  disturbance  to  her  notions  of  life. 
She  was  young  when  they  married  and  doubtless 
it  had  all  been  a  little  frightening  to  her.  He  sup- 
posed it  was  to  most  women.  But  they  got  over 
it  quickly  enough  and  settled  down.  The  sense  of 
Romance  which  most  of  them  cherished  in  their 
youth  in  vague  dreams  and  fond  imaginings  had 
perhaps  been  parted  with  in  some  reluctance.  He 
was  of  the  confident  opinion,  however,  that  his  wife 
would  not  change  her  circumstances  now,  other  than 
to  improve  them  wherever  possible. 

It  was  preposterous  then,  this  suggestion  that  Jill 
wanted  to  marry  someone  else,  since  it  inferred  she 
was  being  obedient  to  those  romantic  notions  which 
he  knew  young  girls  did  entertain  but  which  were 
not  paying  guests  in  any  sense  of  the  word. 

"I  can't  imagine  why  you  want  to  suggest " 

he  began  hotly. 

"Let  her  answer,"  said  Mrs.  Dealtry,  who  had 
never  taken  her  eyes  from  Jill's  face.  "If  she  doesn't 
want  to  marry  anyone  else,  she  can  say  so.  Who 
do  you  want  to  marry,  Jill?"  she  asked  for  the  third 
time. 

"John  Grey,"  Jill  replied,  and  felt  as  though  John, 
rather  than  she,  had  said  it. 

Somehow  or  other  it  had  not  been  her  own 
courage.  As  the  sound  of  the  words  permeated 
through  the  silence  that  was  all  about  her,  she 
marveled  more  and  more  that  they  had  ever  been 
spoken.  Still,  there  it  was.  She  had  said  it.  Yet 
what  was  most  strange  in  her  mind  was  the  sensa- 
tion that  this  was  not  the  end,  but  the  beginning. 


66        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Praying  to  St.  Joseph  at  his  altar,  she  believed 
she  had  only  to  fulfill  her  promise  and  make  a  clean 
breast  of  it  and  once  that  was  done— except  for 
inevitable  wranglings  and  arguments — the  whole 
business  was  as  good  as  accomplished. 

She  had  not  said  she  merely  wanted  to  marry 
John  Grey.  She  had  meant  she  was  going  to  marry 
him.  But  having  said  it,  instead  of  its  seeming 
now  to  be  more  likely  of  accomplishment,  she  felt 
further  away  than  when  it  had  all  been  secret. 

Along  in  that  high-ceilinged  dining  room  of  the 
house  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace,  with  the  light 
of  the  red-shaded  electrolier  falling  sharply  on  the 
empty  coffee  cups,  with  her  mother  sitting  there  in 
silence  in  the  leather-covered,  club  armchair  and  her 
father  taking  deep  breaths  as  he  moved  from  one 
foot  to  another  on  the  hearth-rug,  she  felt  as  though 
she  had  made  confession  of  some  almost  nameless 
sin  in  their  presence — a  sin  which  proclaimed  her 
unfit  to  be  one  of  them  in  that  place  which  seemed 
to  have  a  prior  claim  over  everything  because  it  was 
her  home. 

She  thought  of  Ronald  upstairs  in  his  room  as 
he  undressed,  the  text  on  the  wall  over  his  bed  and 
the  linoleum  on  the  floor  because,  at  his  age,  it  was 
considered  unnatural  to  have  cold  feet,  and  she  felt 
as  though  even  he  would  look  at  her  with  different 
eyes  in  the  morning. 

Mr.  Dealtry  was  the  first  to  speak.  In  the 
shadows  where  he  stood,  Jill  heard  him  take  one 
breath  deeper  than  the  rest. 

"Going  to  marry  that  pauper  scribbler!"  he  ex- 


A  Clean  Breast  of  It  67 

claimed,  and  the  effort  to  pronounce  these  last  two 
words  with  effect,  gathered  little  bubbles  at  the 
corners  of  his  mouth. 

Mrs.  Dealtry  broke  into  laughter — a  peal  of  it. 

In  that  phrase — a  peal  of  laughter — there  must, 
of  course,  be  some  allusion  to  a  peal  of  bells.  One 
has  heard  laughter  like  that.  It  calls  the  heart  to 
some  sort  of  worship.  But  so  far  as  there  was 
anything  in  the  nature  of  that  simile  in  Jill's  mind 
as  she  heard  her  mother's  voice,  it  would  have  been 
a  peal  of  bells  from  a  thousand  churches  all  at  once, 
none  in  harmony,  all  mutilating  the  joy  of  sound. 

For  the  next  few  moments,  she  sat  in  silence 
listening  to  what  they  had  to  say.  They  were  talk- 
ing in  chipped  and  broken,  swift  and  tumbling  sen- 
tences. Money,  position,  comfort,  these  were  the 
words  that  weighed  heaviest  and  were  all  jumbled 
together  in  the  burden  of  their  talk.  She  heard  each 
word.  Not  a  sentence  escaped  her.  In  the  end,  it 
seemed  they  must  bear  her  down  with  the  pressure 
of  their  arguments  and  feverishly  in  the  back  of 
her  mind,  like  a  squirrel  revolving  and  revolving 
in  a  cage,  she  clung  to  a  thought  to  breast  against 
the  flood  of  their  reason. 


Chapter  X :  Having  a  Dream 

SOMETHING  that  John  had  said  to  Jill  as  the 
gondola  had  borne  them  that  night  across 
the  pearl  black  water  of  the  Lagoon,  became 
the  squirrel  revolving  in  its  cage  at  the  back  of 
her  mind  as  she  listened. 

A  few  moments  before,  she  had  been  telling  him 
what  Thomas  Grey's  words  had  meant  to  her. 
Then,  when  for  some  long  while  she  had  been  lying, 
all  silent  in  his  arms,  he  had  said: 

"I  should  never  have  spoken  of  this  before,  be- 
cause, as  I  saw  things,  you  had  your  idea  of  duty 
and  I  did  not  see  it  to  be  mine  to  alter  that  idea 
to  serve  my  ends.  I  don't  mind  what  I  say  now." 

With  no  more  than  the  taking  of  her  breath,  she 
had  asked  him  what  it  was  he  was  going  to  say. 

"Well,  there's  something  inside  everybody,"  he 
began,  "that  makes  life  worth  living.  It's  not  in 
having  things,  or  being  things  or  doing  things.  I 
mean  it's  not  a  sense  of  possession,  or  pride,  or 
power.  It's  a  feeling  like  I  get  when  I'm  working 
and  pick  up  a  clean  sheet  of  paper;  a  feeling  that 
makes  me  hesitate  before  I  touch  the  pen  on  it, 
because  I  know  that  when  it  is  covered  with  words, 
they  won't  have  expressed  one  iota  of  all  the  things 
that  are  in  my  heart,  but  only  things  that  have 
struggled  up  like  bubbles  into  my  brain.  I  feel 

68 


Having  a  Dream  69 

sometimes  I'd  like  to  keep  a  sheet  of  paper  always 
clean — a  sheet  of  paper  I've  often  put  on  my  lap 
and  pulled  out  my  pen  to  write  on,  but  have  never 
defaced  with  a  single  word." 

He  had  stopped  suddenly,  watching  her  hand  as 
she  turned  and  turned  a  locket  chain  about  her 
fingers  and  neither  did  he  see  what  she  did,  nor 
did  she  know  what  she  was  doing.  As  suddenly, 
he  had  continued. 

"There's  something  like  that  inside  everybody," 
he  went  on,  "that  clean  sheet  of  paper — and  it's 
worth  all  the  sensations  of  life  put  together.  Of 
course  I'm  trying  to  explain  it  my  own  way,  using 
my  own  similes — like  we  all  do,  catching  hold  of 
words  from  the  things  we  are  doing  every  day. 
Some  people  call  it  keeping  the  heart  of  a  child,  but 
there's  more  than  just  that  in  it  to  me.  Keeping 
the  heart  of  a  child  is  keeping  a  definite  thing,  the 
beauty  of  which  you  know.  But  you  never  quite 
know  the  beauty  of  the  all  that's  never  written  on 
that  sheet  of  paper.  It's  not  the  beauty  of  the 
best  of  you,  for  it's  just  a  little  bit  better  even  than 
that.  More  or  less  you  can  imagine  what  your 
best  would  be.  You  can  never  quite  imagine  this. 
All  this  may  mean  nothing  to  you.  I  can  only  grope 
with  words.  To  get  the  right  word  is  like  catching 
a  star  out  of  the  sky." 

On  an  impulse,  he  had  seized  hold  of  her  hand; 
her  hand  twirling  the  locket  chain. 

"Do  you  know  at  all  what  I  mean?"  he  had  ex- 
claimed, and  gently,  but  none  too  certain,  she  had 
nodded  her  head. 


70        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"Well,  anyhow,"  he  went  on,  "this  is  what  I 
should  never  have  said  before  because  of  what  you 
had  described  to  be  your  sense  of  duty.  I  can  say 
it  now.  Everybody  has  that  one  clean  sheet  of 
paper,  and  half  of  them — more  than  half! — deface 
its  possibilities  with  the  certainty  of  words.  Oh  I 
the  sheet  of  paper's  no  good!  I  know  you  don't 
understand.  How  could  you!  You  don't  write 
anything.  It  can't  mean  to  you  what  I  really  want 
it  to  mean." 

There  was  almost  a  petulant  note  in  his  voice 
which  had  made  her  smile  and  feel  so  much  older 
than  he  as  she  watched  him. 

"Oh,  it's  just  leaving  something  inside  you,  clean, 
that  the  world  can  never  touch!  That's  all.  Hav- 
ing a  dream  in  all  this  sleeplessness  of  materialism. 
Keeping  something  inside  yourself  which  no  one  can 
ever  take  away — something  which,  in  the  great 
hour  of  love,  or  in  the  great  moment  of  sacrifice 
becomes  the  greater  for  giving  with  both  hands. 
Words  weren't  made  for  it.  Thoughts  come  near 
to  it  some  days,  often  in  sunshine,  when  you  lie 
on  your  back  in  long  summer  grass  and  stare  into 
the  sky  that  is  fathoms  deep  and  blue;  when,  as 
you  lie  there,  a  breath  of  wind — and  it  really  seems 
the  breath  of  someone  breathing — whispers  the 
leaves  in  some  poplar  trees;  when  a  bee  hums  by 
like  a  man  singing  bass  in  an  anthem  and  a  lark 
gets  up  out  of  the  meadows,  mounting  a  ladder  of 
light  with  a  song  on  every  rung,  then  a  thought  gets 
somewhere  near  it." 


Having  a  Dream  71 

He  paused.  It  must  almost  have  been  for  breath, 
he  had  been  speaking  so  fast  and  she  never  thought 
for  one  moment  how  sublimely  young  he  was.  To 
her,  he  was  a  man,  speaking  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
ages. 

"It's  not  been  a  thought,"  he  went  on  quickly  to 
explain.  "It's  not  been  a  thought  you've  thought 
with  words;  not  a  thought  that  has  reached  the 
communicating  function  of  your  brain.  You  get  no 
idea  from  it;  only  a  sensation  that  somewhere  in 
the  world  there  is  an  intense  essence  of  beauty — 
a  great  ultimate  purpose  of  which  in  that  moment 
you  are  wholly  conscious  but  of  which,  so  far  as 
words  are  concerned,  you  are  as  overwhelmingly 
ignorant.  No,  not  even  thoughts  really  touch  it. 
It's  a  revelation — that's  all.  It's  a  dream  in  all 
this  sleeplessness  of  facts." 

Even  then,  he  had  not  said  what  he  had  meant 
to  say.  She  had  waited  with  patience  through  his 
next  silence  letting  all  the  words  he  had  already 
poured  into  her  ears  saturate  through  and  through 
her  mind.  Presently  he  said  what  he  had  intended; 
the  message  he  had  to  give  her  in  which  words  were 
competent. 

"If  you'd  married  that  man,"  he  said,  "married 
him  without  love,  for  the  advantage  the  marriage 
brought  you  and  even  unselfishly  for  the  advantage 
it  brought  others,  I  think  you'd  have  lost  all  touch 
with  those  moments  in  which  one  sees  and  feels  the 
intense  essence  of  beauty  in  the  ultimate  purpose. 
Your  dream  would  have  gone.  All  your  life  you 


72        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

would  have  been  awake  with  facts,  staring  at  them, 
as  one  lies  and  stares  into  the  darkness  through  a 
sleepless  night." 

She  had  known,  not  particularly  that  what  he 
said,  but  what  he  meant,  was  right.  Yet  she  asked 
him  one  question.  It  came  out  of  her  training,  out 
of  what  her  father  called  that  social  atmosphere 
of  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace.  She  could  not  fly 
with  him  all  at  once. 

"Do  you  think  then,"  she  had  asked,  "that  the 
whole  of  life  is  a  dream?  That  we've  got  to  sleep 
through  it  all?" 

He  had  sat  for  a  while  thinking,  then  suddenly 
had  taken  her  arm,  pointing  to  an  orange  light  that 
glittered  in  a  far  window  on  the  Island  of  Murano 
across  the  Lagoon. 

"In  that  room,"  he  replied,  "someone's  slipping 
off  their  clothes  and  going  to  bed." 

As  though  to  prove  the  vision  of  his  words,  the 
light  had  suddenly  gone  out.  It  was  swallowed  up 
in  the  blue  darkness  as  if  it  had  dropped  like  a 
match  into  the  water  and  left  no  trace  behind. 

"They've  gone  to  bed,"  he  whispered.  "All  the 
tiring,  physical  facts,  they've  put  away  from  them. 
They've  thrown  them  aside  from  all  contact  with 
their  body — just  their  clothes,  flung  onto  the  chair. 
When  the  sun  rises  to-morrow  morning  away  there 
over  the  Adriatic,  they'll  wake  again  and  begin 
another  day.  Steal  that  man's  sleep,  set  him  to 
work  with  his  hands  all  night  and  his  body  will 
die  of  it.  Well — minds  die.  Without  sleep,  with- 
out dreams,  your  soul  dies.  A  materialist  is  a  man 


Having  a  Dream  73 

who  never  dreams,  because  he  never  sleeps.  It  is 
always  day  with  him.  You'd  have  been  a  mate- 
rialist if  you'd  married  like  that.  That  fact  would 
have  kept  you  awake  all  your  life  through.  It 
would  have  become  the  insomnia  of  your  soul." 

This  was  the  squirrel  revolving  ceaselessly  in  the 
cage  of  her  mind  as  they  talked  to  her.  Of  a  sudden 
then  she  opened  the  door  of  its  cage  and  let  the 
squirrel  out. 


Chapter  XI :   The  Bird  in  the  Net 

"li  JW  ARRIAGE  is  only  a  bargain  to  you  then," 

I  Y  I        said  Jill  quietly. 

Mr.  Dealtry  observed  with  emphasis 
that  all  contracts  of  exchange  were  in  the  nature 
of  a  bargain.  He  quoted  instances. 

"If  marriages  were  only  made  in  heaven,"  he 
added,  "the  obtaining  witnesses  in  case  of  litigation 
might  prove  awkward." 

That  amused  him.  It  was  far  from  his  intention 
to  treat  the  matter  lightly,  but  while  bringing  home 
the  importance  of  the  civil  aspect  of  matrimony,  it 
was  at  the  same  time  delicately  humorous.  It  was 
not  his  custom  to  laugh  at  his  own  jests,  but  he 
laughed  at  this.  It  never  was  his  custom  to  laugh 
at  any  joke  he  made,  but  there  were  always  excep- 
tions. When  he  found  his  humor  was  not  appre- 
ciated, he  assumed  that  solemnity  of  expression 
which  he  considered  becoming  in  anyone  who  could 
lay  claim  to  a  witty  remark. 

Neither  Mrs.  Dealtry  nor  Jill  were  aware  that 
he  had  made  a  joke  at  all,  for  this  was  not  the  kind 
of 'answer  her  question  had  needed.  In  the  tone 
of  her  daughter's  voice  some  distant  memory  had 
been  stirred  in  Mrs.  Dealtry's  mind;  not  stirred  so 
much  as  to  revive  an  old  consciousness,  but  just 

74 


The  Bird  in  the  Net  75 

sufficient  to  make  her  sense  the  whole  world  of 
meaning  behind  those  words.  She  was  conscious 
of  this  much,  that  her  husband's  remarks  had  been 
futile  and  no  answer  at  all  to  what  Jill  had  said. 

That  distant  memory  in  Mrs.  Dealtry's  mind  was 
doubly  recalled  by  the  fact  that  only  that  morning 
she  had  picked  up  a  volume  of  Browning's  poetry — 
a  copy  that  had  been  given  her  when  she  was  nine- 
teen. It  had  not  been  opened  for  twenty  years. 
She  had  opened  it  then  and  found  passage  after 
passage  underlined  in  pencil. 

At  first  sight  of  those  silent  proofs  of  youthful 
sentimentality,  she  had  muttered  a  laugh  to  herself. 
She  had  forgotten  how  ridiculous  she  had  been. 
Some  couplets  were  scored,  not  with  one  line  only, 
but  often  two  or  three,  the  pencil  still  showing  its 
emotional  indentation  on  the  page: 

Round  the  cape  of  a  sudden  came  the  sea, 


snm — 


And  the  sun  looked  over  the  mountain* 
And  straight  was  a  path  of  gold  for  him, 
And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me. 

Well,  anybody  would  have  marked  that.  It  was 
something  you  quoted  whenever  Browning's  name 
was  mentioned  to  show  that  your  education  had 
not  been  neglected;  that,  though  you  lived  in  a 
prosaic  world  and  did  your  shopping  at  Barker's  in 
the  High  Street,  you  still  had  a  soul  for  poetry. 

But  the  last  line  had  been  scored  the  whole  way 
underneath : 

And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me. 


76        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Involuntarily  her  mind  had  struggled  with  its 
memories  of  what  that  had  meant  to  her  when  she 
had  made  that  mark  of  her  pencil  so  deeply  in- 
dented on  the  page.  Could  it  be  possible  there 
had  ever  been  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  her? 
In  any  case,  what  exactly  did  it  mean?  A  world 
of  men?  She  could  read  it  scarcely  more  than 
literally  now.  A  world  of  men!  One  was  ample. 
She  supposed  it  meant  just  sex,  crying  to  sex — but 
surely  she  could  not  have  marked  it  at  that  age 
because  it  had  meant  that  to  her  then?  Sex — it 
was  a  hateful  word,  a  word  to  shudder  at.  What 
she  had  learnt  of  sex  since  she  had  been  married, 
was  something  of  which  she  had  never  made  com- 
plete confession,  even  to  herself.  Whenever  she 
did  think  of  it,  she  turned  the  thought  swiftly  aside 
with  the  remembrance  of  her  children. 

But  none  of  these  considerations  had  solved  the 
mystery  of  why  she  had  scored  that  line  with  its 
deep  pencil  mark: 

And  the  need  of  a  world  of  men  for  me. 

Had  there  been  some  consciousness  of  sex  in  her 
at  that  age?  And  whatever  it  was,  had  it  conveyed 
a  sense  of  beauty,  strong  enough  in  emotion  to  in- 
duce her  in  this  manner  to  make  a  fool  of  herself? 
Her  cheeks  were  hot  now  at  the  dim  remembrance 
of  it.  For  she  did  remember  something — some 
affair  which  returned  to  her  mind — an  incident  she 
would  now  describe  as  a  foolish  flirtation.  If  that 
were  not  the  proper  description  of  it,  then  she  felt 


The  Bird  in  the  Net  77 

shame  to  think  what  it  might  have  been  in  her  mind; 
thoughts  she  could  only  describe  as — unholy — now. 
Had  it  been  that?  She  tried  to  think  she  had  for- 
gotten. But  irresistibly  there  came  into  her  memory 
a  night  at  a  dance  in  the  country  somewhere.  There 
was  an  old  garden  about  the  house  with  high  box 
edges  round  the  paths  and  the  night  was  blue  in 
its  darkness — blue  and  silver,  with  the  spread  of 
glittering  stars.  And  she  had  walked  down  those 
paths  with — yes — she  could  remember  his  name. 
Heaven  only  knew  what  had  become  of  him  since. 

Had  she  thought  she  was  in  love  with  him  ?  She 
supposed  she  must.  Or — and  this  was  a  terrible 
thought — had  she  only  been  in  love  with  love.  No  I 
It  could  not  have  been  so  unholy  as  that.  She  must 
have  thought  she  was  in  love  with  him,  for  as  the 
memory  returned  with  the  hypnotic  concentration  of 
her  gaze  upon  those  pencil  lines,  she  remembered 
vaguely  the  hot  swift  rush  of  burning  words  he 
had  poured  into  her  ears,  the  vows  of  eternal  adora- 
tion he  had  made,  the  kisses  he  had  squandered  on 
her  cheeks  and  neck,  the  trembling  hand  she  had 
let  find  its  way  to  hold  her  beating  breast. 

As  that  vision  came  back,  she  had  shut  the  book, 
trembling  herself  and  all  afire  with  the  shame  of 
her  memories.  "The  need  of  a  world  of  men!" 
She  thanked  God  that  need  had  swfftly  found  Its 
quiet  in  the  duties  of  married  life  and  the  care  of 
her  children.  They  should  have  the  best  that  she 
could  give  them  and  that  evening,  hearing  her  hus- 
band's fatuous  remarks  about  the  civil  contract  of 
marriage,  she  knew  it  was  the  best  of  her  advice, 


78        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

based  on  her  experience  of  married  life,  which  she 
could  give  to  Jill. 

It  would  not  be  expedient,  however,  to  give  that 
advice  direct.  Telling  her  she  must  give  up  this 
pauper  marriage,  urging  her  to  see  the  disadvan- 
tages it  would  entail,  this  was  not  the  policy  to 
pursue.  She  must  sympathize  and  with  understand- 
ing, if  it  were  only  that  understanding  arising  out 
of  memories  which  had  no  meaning  to  her  now. 

She  enjoined  her  husband  not  to  be  a  fool. 

"Jill  doesn't  mean  anything  like  that,"  she  said. 
"What's  the  matter  with  her  is  that  she's  romantic 
— like  I  was  at  her  age.  She  doesn't  realize  yet 
that  Romance  only  carries  you  to  the  doors  of  the 
church  and  then  leaves  you  in  the  ditch." 

John's  words  were  burning  in  her  mind,  or  Jill 
could  never  have  said  what  she  did. 

"Isn't  it  that  you  leave  Romance,"  she  declared, 
"and  prefer  to  get  into  the  ditch  yourself?" 

She  was  fighting  with  the  courage  of  her  despair, 
for  the  odds  were  all  against  her.  All  the  twenty 
years  of  obedience  to  their  wishes  were  on  their 
side  and  they  had  not  made  one  demand  of  her  yet. 
Would  she  obey  when  they  did? 

"Honor  thy  father  and  mother  that  the  days  may 
be  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth 
thee."  But  the  very  length  of  those  days,  were  she 
to  humor  their  wishes  by  marrying  Mr.  Skipwith, 
might  be  the  essence  of  the  ugliness  of  life.  She 
might  pray  that  her  days  might  be  short  in  the 
land  and  that  most  fervently  she  did,  but  so  in- 
grained was  this  creed  of  her  home  life  that  she 


The  Bird  in  the  Net  79 

feared  for  her  courage  when  the  test  of  their 
authority  came. 

In  the  few  moments  of  his  wife's  silence,  follow- 
ing the  unexpected  candor  of  Jill's  retort,  Mr. 
Dealtry,  seizing  an  opportunity  too  rare  to  be 
missed,  demanded  what  she  and  her  pauper  scribbler 
were  going  to  live  on.  He  spoke  of  bread  and 
cheese  and  kisses  without  a  smile.  The  humor  of 
putting  it  that  way  was  not  his  own. 

"Is  Ronald  to  give  up  his  chances  in  life?"  he 
asked  her.  "Am  I  to  take  to  hard  work  again  at 
my  age?  Is  your  mother  to  give  up  her  comfort- 
able home  with  a  respectable  address  and  go  to  a 
house  in  Earl's  Court?" 

To  all  of  which,  comprehensively  to  them,  though 
to  herself  as  though  she  were  speaking  in  a  dream, 
Jill  replied:  "I  suppose  so." 

They  both  looked  at  her  in  amazement. 

"So  it's  for  this  I've  spent  the  best  years  of  my 
life,  to  bring  you  up!"  exclaimed  Mr.  Dealtry. 
"And  while  we  are  suffering  all  the  discomforts  of 
Earl's  Court,"  he  added,  "may  I  ask  where  you're 
going  to  live?" 

"In  Fetter  Lane,"  said  she. 

Then,  in  one  voice  together,  they  declared  she 
was  more  than  romantic.  She  was  mad !  And  such 
is  the  power  of  training  and  environment,  that  Jill 
thought  she  must  be  mad  as  well.  For  though 
there  were  many  things  she  wanted  to  say  in  her 
defense,  in  justification  of  all  this  wonder  of  love, 
yet  there,  in  the  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace,  they 
did  not  even  seem  worth  the  while. 


8o        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Indeed  in  that  atmosphere,  there  were  moments 
when  tremblingly,  she  mistrusted  herself;  moments 
while  she  listened  to  the  speciousness  of  their  argu- 
ments when  she  thought  it  must  have  been  some 
other  than  herself  who  had  made  those  promises 
to  John.  Venice,  the  Lagoon,  the  death-bed  of 
Thomas  Grey,  the  tender  wistfulness  and  belief  of 
the  little  old  white-haired  lady,  they  began  to  ap- 
pear to  her  in  all  the  nature  of  a  vision  she  could 
but  dimly  reach  in  the  focus  of  her  mind.  Gradu- 
ally, as  they  talked  with  their  countless  instances, 
she  became  awake  again  with  facts.  This — and  she 
knew  it — was  the  sleeplessness  of  Life;  the  insomnia 
her  soul  had  been  accustomed  to.  And  every  mo- 
ment she  was  losing  power  to  close  her  eyes  and 
find  the  restfuiness  of  that  dreaming  John  had 
brought  her. 

Over  and  over  again  she  repeated  in  her  brain 
the  last  benediction  of  Thomas  Grey,  as  one,  with 
aching  eyes  in  the  darkness,  counts  sheep  going 
through  a  gate.  Passionately  she  yearned  for  that 
contented  view  of  life,  John  had  whispered  to  her 
as  the  gondola  broke  the  water  into  ripples  on  the 
Lagoon. 

It  was  out  of  love  indeed  that  he  would  make 
his  life,  his  children  and  his  work.  Why  was  it 
such  a  degradation  to  be  poor?  Not  everyone  who 
did  their  best  was  paid  for  it.  And  wasn't  it  loving 
the  best  and  doing  it  that,  through  all  the  gray  days 
and  the  blue  days,  made  life  worth  living? 

Some  would  always  be  well  paid.  Some  would 
always  make  money.  But  did  that  make  money  a 


The  Bird  in  the  Net  81 

thing  in  itself,  more  worth  having  than  the  joy  of 
the  work  which  brought  it?  For  a  man  to  love 
his  work,  for  a  woman  to  love  her  man,  weren't 
these  the  essentials  with  which  to  set  out  on  the 
journey?  For  them  both  to  love  each  other,  as 
John  loved  her  and  she,  him — was  not  that  the 
essence  of  the  best  that  life  could  afford? 

She  thought  these  things,  violently,  passionately 
— but  each  thought  was  like  the  beating  of  a  bird's 
wings  as  it  struggled  in  a  net.  The  power  of  flight 
was  in  each  thought  as  it  fluttered  in  her  brain, 
but  the  net  was  there  about  her,  imprisoning  every 
effort  of  escape.  She  knew  once  uttered  they  would 
sound  the  note  of  madness  in  that  room. 

There  about  the  walls  were  some  hundreds  of 
pounds  worth  of  old  furniture,  bought  in  more 
palmy  days.  Was  that  to  be  sold  when  they  went 
into  the  purgatory  of  Earl's  Court?  There  was  her 
father's  glass  of  liquor  brandy  at  eighteen  shillings 
a  bottle.  Was  that  to  be  empty  when  he  took  his- 
cup  of  coffee  after  dinner?  There  was  the  motor 
car  he  was  intending  to  buy.  It  had  not  occurred 
to  her  to  be  strange  that  he  had  already  selected 
the  make  and  the  horsepower,  indeed  had  had  a 
trial  spin  in  it,  when  the  purchase  was  ultimately 
to  be  made  with  someone  else's  money.  A  motor 
car  was  too  ripping  a  possession  to  bother  overmuch 
about  who  paid  for  it.  There  were  all  the  things 
of  comfort  and  luxury  that  had  become  the  habit 
of  their  lives  under  the  roof  of  that  house  in  Prince 
of  Wales's  Terrace.  Were  they  all  to  be  given  up 
for  her  want  of  determination  to  put  a  gold  ring 


82       World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

on  her  finger  and,  as  many  another  girl  had  done 
before  her,  make  herself  comfortable  for  life  with 
a  man  for  whom  she  had  only  an  appreciable  amount 
of  respect? 

Somehow,  there  in  that  room,  it  seemed  madness 
to  protest.  It  was  her  mother,  watching  her  in  all 
those  moments,  who  saw  that  struggle  between  love 
and  duty  in  which  she  swung. 

"George,"  she  said  to  her  husband,  "I  was  just 
thinking  of  the  quickest  way  we  could  drop  our 
friends,  because,  I  don't  think  it's  conceit  to  say, 
we  do  know  some  of  the  best  people." 

"A  cheerful  thought,"  said  he. 

"If  we  go  to  Earl's  Court,"  she  replied,  "that'll 
be  quite  enough." 

"But  I'm  damned  if  we're  going  to  Earl's 
Court!"  he  retorted. 

"I  think  we've  got  to  consult  Jill  about  that,"  said 
she.  "She  knows  her  own  happiness  best." 


Chapter  XII :   The  Zoo 

JILL  came  to  their  meeting  in  Kensington 
Gardens  two  mornings  later,  dragging  her 
steps  as  though  it  were  to  the  scaffold  of 
their  parting. 

They  had  triumphed  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Ter- 
race. It  was  not  for  a  moment  that  she  admitted 
it.  It  was  scarcely  even  that  she  realized.  All  that 
had  happened  in  her  consciousness  was  the  gradual 
dripping  away  of  her  courage  until  she  knew  her 
heart,  which  had  been  full  and  brimming  over,  was 
now  as  empty  as  a  leaking  pitcher. 

Not  one  sign  of  admission  of  their  victory  had 
Jill  given  at  the  end  of  that  encounter.  In  face 
of  her  father's  authority,  peremptorily  command- 
ing her  to  see  no  more  of  John,  she  had  given  no 
word  of  obedience. 

Nothing  had  she  done,  of  which  she  was  con- 
scious, to  convey  to  either  of  them  her  knowledge 
of  defeat  before  the  odds  which  they  had  arrayed 
against  her.  Yet  during  the  two  days  that  followed, 
in  her  mother's  voice,  in  the  little  propitiating  things 
she  did,  the  very  way  she  came  into  her  room  and 
kissed  her  when  once  the  light  was  out  and  no  one 
could  see  the  tears  staining  her  cheeks,  in  all  these 
subtle  attentions,  Jill  felt  the  hand  of  the  victor 

83 


84        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

stretched  out  to  soften,  to  approve  of  her  sur- 
render. 

How  had  she  known?  Had  she  found  the  tears 
wet  on  her  cheeks  and  guessed  from  them?  No — 
it  could  not  be  that.  The  knowledge  had  been  there 
already  or  she  would  never  have  come  to  her  room. 
Only  with  a  certainty  of  Jill's  submission  would  she 
have  betrayed  this  spirit  of  magnanimity.  Had  she 
believed  Jill's  mind  was  made  up  to  marry  her 
pauper  scribbler,  there  would  have  been  an  unmelt- 
ing  coldness  in  her  eyes,  a  note  like  the  vibration 
of  a  steel  wire  in  her  voice.  Had  she  really  be- 
lieved her  daughter  was  going  to  make  such  folly 
of  her  life,  she  would  have  fought  for  her  sanity 
with  every  weapon  that  could  bring  her  pain. 

With  this  chilling  knowledge  of  her  mother, 
there  oozed  the  last  drop  of  her  courage  away. 
Something  inevitable  there  appeared  to  be  in  the 
pointing  finger  of  her  fate.  She  had  been  meant 
to  see  love  on  the  dim  horizon  of  her  vision — a 
figure  in  the  far  distance,  high  on  the  crest  of  the 
hills,  a  figure,  silhouetted,  she  could  just  discern  as 
she  walked  the  broad  highway  through  the  valley 
below.  She  had  been  meant  to  see  him,  to  hear 
even  in  that  distance  the  faint  music  of  his  pipes. 
But  that  was  all. 

There,  on  the  crest  of  those  hills,  the  winding 
pathway  was  no  more  than  a  shepherd's  track,  lead- 
ing to  the  wild  places  where  those  who  follow  must 
"be  content  to  find  the  earth  a  pillow  often  for  their 
head.  Her  road,  she  knew  it,  was  the  open  high- 
way, pressing  on  with  those  to  reach  the  lighted 


The  Zoo  85 

townland,  where  there  was  down  to  rest  one's  tired 
limbs  upon  and  the  laughter  of  a  feast  to  cheer  up 
an  empty  heart. 

So  she  came  to  Kensington  Gardens  that  morning, 
as  one,  wearily  dragging  their  steps  out  of  the 
already  toilsome  way,  knowing  it  is  a  fruitless  dis- 
cursion;  counting  each  football  in  certainty  of  the 
labor  of  their  return. 

John,  coming  to  meet  his  Jill,  was  in  other  mood 
than  this.  By  careful  calculation,  with  all  the  things 
that  he  could  pawn,  making  no  material  difference 
to  the  domestic  arrangements  of  the  house,  there 
was  a  sum  amounting  to  nigh  on  twenty  pounds  to 
defray  the  cost  of  the  wedding  and  the  subsequent 
honeymoon. 

His  imagination  took  flights  like  the  swallows 
when  he  began  thinking  of  all  they  could  do  with 
twenty  pounds.  He  skimmed  the  possibilities  even 
of  going  abroad  and  as  swiftly  left  touch  of  them 
when  a  sudden  fear  came  to  his  mind  of  their  finding 
themselves  prisoners,  unable  to  get  back. 

For  now,  in  the  new  world  he  had  entered,  he 
realized  his  mind  was  full  of  fears;  always  because 
of  Jill;  such  fears  would  have  been  ludicrous  for 
himself.  Added  to  which,  the  more  he  thought 
about  her  and  the  life  to  which  she  was  accustomed, 
the  more  he  pictured  the  house  in  Prince  of  Wales's 
Terrace  as  a  kind  of  mansion,  with  men  servants 
and  maid  servants,  a  comprehensive  inventory  of 
all  it  was  intended  your  imagination  should  read 
into  the  tenth  commandment. 

Yet  these  fears  had  no  firm  hold  on  him  for 


86        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

long.  He  could  shake  them  from  him  with  a  laugh 
in  the  belief  that  she  loved  as  he  loved.  A  sense 
of  power  pervaded  everything  and  drove  difficulties 
before  it  by  the  sheer  magic  of  its  will.  The  East 
African  lion,  if  it  had  got  out  of  its  cage,  had  done 
no  more  than  push  its  head  through  the  gates  of 
the  circus  ring.  It  was  not  long  before  the  beast 
was  safely  back  again  behind  the  bars. 

John  was  cracking  his  whip  once  more  with  all 
the  old  confidence  of  the  ringmaster — the  old  pie- 
bald horse  of  happy  circumstance  was  ambling 
round  the  circus  track  with  the  same  obedience  as 
of  old.  Will,  and  free-will  at  that,  could  order 
everything. 

One  thing  only  there  was  of  all  he  had  learnt 
in  these  first  days  of  his  new  revelations,  one  thing 
hanging  heavily  about  his  heart  which,  however 
often  he  might  put  it  away,  returned  with  a  clinging 
persistence.  With  the  cracking  of  his  whip,  he 
might  drive  it  helter-skelter  out  of  the  ring,  but 
again  and  again  with  the  pathetic  insistence  of  the 
dog  that  plays  the  clown,  it  would  come  back  to 
his  feet. 

He  believed  that  Amber  was  suffering.  Why,  he 
had  not  vanity  enough  properly  to  understand.  Yet 
still  there  were  certain  things  that  had  happened 
which  he  could  only  read  one  way.  No  other  in- 
terpretation seemed  possible.  For  three  months,  so 
Madame  Defautin  had  told  him,  she  had  dined  alone 
at  Le  Pauvre  Monsieur.  Again  that  sound  in  her 
voice  when  she  had  questioned  his  use  of  Harefield 
in  his  make-believe. 


The  Zoo  87 

"But  Harefield  belonged  to  us,*'  she  had  said. 

Had  she  cared  what  belonged  to  them  then? 
Had  he  known  till  then  that  anything  did  belong 
to  them  in  their  relationship? 

And  lastly,  her  turning  away  at  the  door  in  Fetter 
Lane,  her  turning  away  and  her  never  looking  back. 

He  did  not  want  to  believe  she  was  really  suffer- 
ing, but  the  knowledge  would  never  leave  him  alone 
for  long.  Often  he  found  himself  wondering  what 
would  she  be  like  when  she  suffered?  How  deep 
would  that  suffering  be?  Would  she  sit  at  home  on 
that  drawing-room  floor  in  Hogarth  Road  with  the 
tears  tumbling  down  her  cheeks?  Never!  Not 
she  I  It  would  be  a  dumb  suffering  like  an  animal's 
— a  turning  hither  and  thither,  a  running  up  this 
street,  down  that,  like  a  dog  that  is  lost — a  being 
very  busy  over  nothing,  taking  a  vivid  interest  in 
things  her  hands  touched  but  her  mind  was  oblivious 
of  and  singing,  perhaps — singing  all  the  time. 

Now  that  once  he  had  sensed  the  truth,  he  could 
in  his  imagination  picture  all  the  twitchings  of  her 
pain.  Yet  what  could  he  do?  Had  the  fault  been 
his?  He  was  in  a  new  world — a  world  where  things 
hurt — a  world  of  reality,  needing  all  belief  and  all 
courage  and  faith  to  see  the  wonder  it  contained. 
He  supposed  her  suffering  was  part  of  it,  but  as  yet 
failed  signally  to  reconcile  it  with  his  beliefs  and 
the  faith  he  had  in  his  heart. 

For  what  had  made  her  suffer?  He  had  had 
her  assurance  she  had  not  cared  before.  Had  that 
assurance  been  false?  He  caught  for  the  moment 
suspicion  of  a  woman's  pride  and  as  swiftly  put 


88        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

it  away  from  him.  What  could  she  care  for  in 
him?  He  had  given  her  nothing  of  himself  as  he 
was  giving  now  with  both  hands  to  Jill.  Indeed, 
had  he  ever  realized  how  wonderful  it  was  to  give, 
until  he  had  met  her  and  she  first  had  given  him 
her  interest  as  he  read  his  story  to  her  that  day  in 
Kensington  Gardens? 

But  argue  it  as  he  might,  the  knowledge  was  ir- 
revocably there.  She  was  hurt.  She  was  suffering. 
The  consciousness  of  it  came  back  again  and  again 
and  at  moments,  most  heavily,  when  his  heart  was 
lightest. 

It  came  back  to  him  that  morning  as  he  turned 
to  the  top  of  the  Flower  Walk  from  the  Albert 
Memorial.  For  an  instant  it  darkened  all  the 
glorious  prospects  of  their  meeting.  With  an  effort 
he  thrust  it  away  from  him. 

"One  must  shut  one's  eyes  going  through  the 
world!"  he  exclaimed  and  he  shut  his  eyes,  but  like 
a  blind  man  could  still  feel  the  presence  of  her 
pain  in  the  tips  of  his  fingers. 

But  the  sight  of  Jill,  coming  up  the  walk  to  meet 
him,  drove  every  other  thought  beside  it  out  of  his 
head.  She  was  so  wonderfully  dressed.  She  looked 
far  too  beautiful  for  it  to  be  believable  that  she 
loved  him.  He  thought  an  instant  of  his  hat  and 
wished  for  her  sake  he  had  bought  a  new  one.  The 
next  moment  thoughts  like  that  were  gone  like 
bubbles.  Her  hand  was  in  his.  Her  eyes  were 
searching  his  face  and  though  they  looked  sad,  he 
knew  he  could  soon  bring  their  laughter  back. 

To  know  how  wonderful  a  place  the  world  was, 


The  Zoo  89 

it  was  only  necessary  to  realize  that  they  were  soon 
to  be  married.  He  never  doubted  that,  even  with 
the  sad  look  in  her  eyes.  Her  eyes  were  often  sad. 
With  all  the  riches  of  her  fur  coat  and  that  house 
in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace,  he  frequently  caught 
an  expression  in  her  eyes  as  though  she  were  looking 
out  into  the  world  from  a  very  little  window,  deep 
set  within  the  wall. 

"We  can't  stay  here,"  said  she — the  first  words 
that  were  spoken. 

He  looked  at  her  in  surprise. 

"Why  not?"  he  asked. 

She  gave  him  the  only  reason  she  had — the  reason 
predominant  above  all  others  in  her  mind:  "Be- 
cause," said  she,  "we  can't." 

"Where  can  we  go  then?"  he  questioned  her. 

She  had  hoped  he  would  tell  her  that.  With  their 
freedom  in  the  world,  men  knew  of  all  sorts  of  odd 
places. 

He  suggested  Fetter  Lane.  She  shook  her  head. 
With  what  she  had  to  tell  him,  she  feared  to  trust 
herself  there  alone  with  him  as  once  before  when 
he  told  her  the  story  of  Beautiful  Nonsense.  For 
the  last  two  days  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace,  it 
had  been  as  though  they  had  beaten  gongs  in  her 
ears.  She  was  deaf  to  everything  inside  herself  but 
the  sound  of  that  metallic  clanging  of  facts.  By 
now,  she  was  afraid  of  the  stillness  should  it  follow, 
and  follow  it  surely  would  in  those  rooms  in  Fetter 
Lane. 

"I  want  somewhere  where  we  can  talk,"  said  she, 
"but  where  there  are  lots  and  crowds  of  people." 


90        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"The  Zoo,"  suggested  John  to  please  her  fancy; 
for  what  did  it  matter  where  they  went  when,  not 
long  time  to  come,  the  days  together  would  be  their 
very  own. 

"The  Zoo— to-day's  Bank  Holiday— there'll  be 
crowds  there  all  right.  Awful  fun,  the  Zoo,  on  a 
Bank  Holiday." 

She  pressed  his  arm  tenderly  when  he  talked  of 
fun,  for  she  knew  how  much  she  was  going  to  hurt 
him.  And  it  really  was  wonderful  of  him  to  think 
of  the  Zoo.  That  was  the  very  kind  of  place  she 
wanted — a  place  where  there  were  so  many  people 
you  could  not  know  quite  all  the  pain  that  was  in 
your  heart;  where,  even  if  your  lips  quivered,  some- 
one might  see  it,  so  that  every  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  your  suffering  would  have  to  be  concealed. 

He  could  not  plead  with  her  there;  not  as  he 
might  if  they  were  alone  where  none  could  see.  He 
could  not  touch  her  hand.  He  could  not  walk  up  and 
down  or  beat  his  hands  together,  or  do  any  of  those 
things  she  could  quite  believe  a  man  might  do  who 
must  listen  to  the  confession  of  a  woman's  want 
of  courage  such  as  hers. 

There  they  might  sit  together  perhaps,  but  any- 
thing they  might  say  would  be  certain  to  be  over- 
heard, so  that  a  sense  of  dignity  must  keep  them 
circumspect  and  she  would  never  have  the  fullest 
knowledge  of  how  much  she  had  hurt  him.  Poor 
consolation  for  one  who  ached  to  think  she  must 
hurt  him  at  all.  Even  so,  she  had  hope  that  the 
pain  of  it  need  not  wholly  be  administered  by  her. 
It  was  not  that  she  wished  definitely  to  tell  him 


The  Zoo  91 

they  could  not  be  married,  as  that  when  she  had 
said  all,  had  told  him  of  the  duties  oppressing  her 
on  every  side,  that  then  he,  of  his  own  accord,  would 
say  how  impossible  their  marriage  had  become. 

"That'll  be  splendid,"  she  said  with  enthusiasm, 
and  forced  a  tender  smile  that  deceived  him.  Then 
they  walked  down  into  Knightsbridge  and  John 
called  a  hansom. 

"The  Zoo!"  said  he,  and  from  the  tone  of  his 
voice  it  might  have  been  the  Bank  of  England. 


Chapter  XIII :  The  Window  that  is  Closed 

INDEED,  it  was  crowded  enough.  An  all-per- 
vading odor  of  orange  peel  met  them  the 
moment  they  entered  the  gates.  One  forgets 
that  children  are  being  born  every  hour  of  the  day 
and  all  the  year  round,  until  one  passes  through 
the  toll-gates  of  the  Zoological  Gardens  on  a  Bank 
Holiday.  One  forgets  that  paper  bags  can  be 
manufactured  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred  a  minute,  or 
that  the  supply  of  oranges,  lemonade  and  ginger- 
bread are  trades  which  make  for  some  men  their 
fortunes  while  all  the  time  they  are  making  many 
children  sick. 

These  facts  you  learn  quickly  in  the  Zoo  on  a 
Bank  Holiday.  They  are  facts  indeed  from  which 
you  cannot  get  away;  not  even  if  you  go  into  the 
Cat  House  which  is  calculated  to  disagree  with  a 
glass  of  milk  and  soda  and  a  bun. 

Wherever  they  went  that  morning,  the  crowds 
were  unavoidable.  John  thought  of  the  Cat  House,, 
prompted  by  reasons  unnecessary  to  repeat,  but  with 
no  success.  These  children  had  seen  cats  all  their 
lives,  had  pulled  their  tails  and  tweaked  their 
whiskers.  But  they  had  never  before  seen  them 
behind  the  bars  of  a  cage  and  that  made  all  the 
difference. 

The  Cat  House  was  crowded.  Putting  his  nose 
92 


The  Window  that  is  Closed        93 

round  the  corner  of  the  door,  John  was  glad,  rather 
than  sorry  for  that.  As  for  the  Monkey  House, 
the  monkeys  were  reveling  in  the  freedom  of  their 
prisons,  while  the  public  was  perspiring  in  one 
dense  and  uncomfortable  mass  around  the  bars. 

"It's  all  a  matter  of  which  way  you  look  at 
things,"  said  John.  And  that  was  the  first  time 
that  morning  Jill  had  laughed. 

They  tried  the  Lion  House.  Any  fool  might  have 
known  it  would  be  no  better.  It  was  then  an  hour 
before  feeding  time  and  men  and  women  as  well 
as  children,  with  solemn  faces  were  standing  there, 
who  had  been  waiting  for  hours,  nibbling  little  buns 
while  they  waited  to  see  one  animal  dispose  in  five 
minutes  of  twenty  pounds  of  good,  red  horseflesh — 
bones  and  all. 

It  was  only  by  that  vast  open  aviary  where  the 
British  birds  fly  in  and  out  of  the  branches  all  day 
long,  that  they  found  any  room  to  move. 

"British  birds,"  said  John,  "are  not  interesting 
to  British  people.  How  can  they  be?  They  keep 
them  in  little  cages  themselves." 

The  voice  of  a  fat  woman  in  purple,  with  three 
children  apparently  all  the  same  age,  had  decided 
him. 

Seeing  the  notice,  "To  the  British  Birds,"  she 
had  said: 

"Blowed  if  I  paid  my  sixpence  to  see  a  lot  of 
sparrers!" 

"Come  on!"  said  John,  and  they  had  at  least 
found  room  to  stand  and  press  their  noses  up 
against  the  meshes  of  the  wire. 


94       World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Here  he  pointed  out  to  her  the  birds  he  knew 
as  they  flew  by.  And  it  seemed  he  knew  them 
all.  But  not  only  did  he  know  them  all;  he  had 
his  stories  about  them,  like  the  stories  you  tell 
children.  Such  stories  he  had  already  told  her  of 
the  parrot  in  Fetter  Lane;  of  the  statue  of  St. 
Joseph  they  painted  with  a  gray  beard  in  Ardmore 
to  make  a  patron  Saint  of  him. 

She  listened  gently  at  first,  then  willingly.  In 
time  it  became  eagerly,  little  realizing,  as  little  he 
realized  too,  of  the  subtle  influence  these  stories 
were  having  in  her  mind.  Without  knowing  it, 
either  of  them,  he  was  putting  her  to  sleep.  Gradu- 
ally there  was  creeping  back  into  the  breast  of  her, 
the  heart  of  a  child.  In  some  odd  fashion  of  his 
own,  he  could  touch  the  essence  of  beauty  as  he 
talked.  He  carried  the  Romance  of  Life  about  with 
him,  like  a  master  key  in  his  pocket. 

She  had  come  there  with  ideas  of  money,  com- 
fort, position,  all  filling  her  thoughts;  echoes  that 
were  never  still,  but  continually  beating  from  one 
side  to  the  other  of  her  brain.  Those  echoes  had 
been  keeping  her  awake  and  now,  gradually  and 
imperceptibly,  they  were  fading  into  silence.  With 
the  sound  of  his  stories,  more  than  the  actual  story 
they  told,  he  was  stealing  her  soul  out  of  city 
streets.  Step  by  step  it  crept  out  of  the  lighted 
townland  in  the  valley.  Step  by  step  it  mounted 
the  hills  to  the  crest  where  Love  was.  Then  it  was 
only  a  shepherd's  track  where  they  walked,  but  it 
led  through  the  scented  gorse  and  the  tinkling 
heather,  where  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  next- 


The  Window  that  is  Closed        95 

door  neighbor,  or  the  chance  of  meeting  a  friend 
whom  circumstance  had  compelled  you  to  drop. 

Money  did  not  seem  to  matter  so  much  there. 
Indeed  the  blossoms  of  the  gorse  were  all  the  gold 
they  needed;  the  ripples  of  the  hill  streams,  silver 
enough  to  fill  their  purse. 

John  could  give  you  the  impression  that  you  could 
live  like  a  squirrel  upon  nuts  and  disperse  with  all 
the  oranges,  the  lemonade  and  ginger-bread,  indeed, 
with  all  the  feasts  of  plenty  in  the  world. 

As  he  talked,  she  could  almost  believe  such  things 
were  possible;  yet  there,  had  she  known  it,  there 
was  he  scraping  his  few  possessions  together  and 
exchanging  them  for  money  over  the  pawnbroker's 
counter,  in  order  to  defray  the  expenses  of  a  honey- 
moon. 

"See  that  little  bird!"  he  had  exclaimed  one 
moment  and  beyond  the  straight,  eager  line  of  his 
finger,  she  had  made  out  a  tiny  thing  with  a  black 
head  and  soft  gray  breast,  hopping  from  one  branch 
to  another. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked. 

"A  blackcap." 

"And  what's  he  do?" 

According  to  him  they  all  did  strange,  odd 
things;  things  that  human  beings  might  do,  if  only 
they  had  such  freedom,  or  such  a  joy  in  life.  And 
there  already  was  her  eagerness  to  know. 

"What's  he  do?"  she  had  asked. 

The  blackcap,  he  told  her,  was  a  ballad-monger 
in  the  streets  of  the  world  where  birds  lived — a 
ballad-monger  who,  every  early  springtime  hired  a 


96        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

top  attic  in  a  quick-set  hedge  wherein  to  practice 
his  latest  song,  until  he  knew  it  off  by  heart. 

"Why  a  top  attic?"  she  asked. 

"Well,  because  it's  an  absolutely  original  song, 
and  he  has  to  be  very  careful  that  no  one  sneaks  the 
idea.  There  are  lots  of  birds  that  go  about  stealing 
ideas  for  songs  just  at  that  time  of  the  year  when 
there's  nothing  but  music  in  the  air,  so  he  has  to 
be  careful.  He  has  to  take  a  top  attic — anything 
on  the  ground  floor  would  be  fatal.  Why,  the 
passer-by  in  the  street  would  hear  him  at  it." 

Here  was  his  Nonsense  which,  like  the  shoes  on 
his  feet  or  the  satchel  on  his  back,  he  must  bring 
with  him  to  make  a  sense  of  Wonder  in  his  new 
world  of  Reality. 

There  are  John  Greys  in  every  street.  You  have 
only  to  look  at  their  unfashionable  shoes,  or  the 
shapeless  leather  satchel  on  their  backs  to  recognize 
them.  And  to  the  men  whose  brains  are  tired  of 
being  wise,  they  are  fools.  And  to  the  fools  whose 
hearts  beat  a  sound  pulse  beneath  their  waistcoats, 
they  are  the  best  company  on  the  road. 

"It's  just  in  the  end  of  April,"  he  went  on,  wheni 
once  he  knew  her  heart  was  intrigued  with  the  folly 
of  his  tale,  "as  soon  as  there  come  those  soft, 
warm  winds  when  you  can  feel  everything  in  the 
lanes  and  woods  is  leaning  out  to  catch  the  first 
sight  of  Summer,  it's  just  then  he  goes  out  in  the 
streets,  up  and  down,  singing  the  song  he's  invented. 
And  no  one  has  got  quite  the  little  trills  and  turns 
that  he  has;  moreover  it's  too  late  for  them  to 
try  and  steal  them  from  him  then.  You  see  the 


The  Window  that  is  Closed        97 

end  of  April's  copyright  day.  The  song  a  bird  sings 
from  the  first  of  May  is  his  very  own.  It's  too  late 
to  be  a  plagiarist  then." 

"But  why's  it  too  late?  I  should  have  thought 
it  became  common  property  once  he  sings  it  in  the 
streets.  What's  to  prevent  anyone  picking  it  up?" 

"The  mere  expediency  of  time,"  said  John,  and 
turning  his  nose  in  the  hole  of  the  wire-netting 
through  which  it  was  still  pushed,  he  looked 
straightly  in  her  eyes.  "The  expediency  of  time — 
the  call  of  Youth.  Once  the  Spring  has  set  well  in, 
there's  no  time  even  in  Youth  to  learn  another 
fellow's  song.  You've  got  to  sing  your  own.  All 
the  windows  in  the  streets  are  open.  Summer's 
cumen  in.  The  ladies  are  up  there  in  the  second 
and  third-floor  branches,  throwing  down  pennies  to 
him  as  he  sings.  You  can't  pick  up  another  fel- 
low's penny.  That's  not  tip  and  run." 

"Why  do  you  say — tip  and  run?" 

"Because  that's  the  game  they  play — like  we  play 
cricket." 

"But  does  he  sing  for  pennies?" 

"No.  I  wondered  if  you'd  ask  that.  No.  It 
isn't  for  pennies  he  sings;  though  most  times  it's 
nothing  but  pennies  he  gets." 

"What  does  he  sing  for  then?" 

Behind  all  this  nonsense  of  his,  she  felt  all  the 
functioning  of  his  thought,  the  constant  steady  drift 
of  his  mind,  the  message  he  was  giving  her  with 
perhaps  never  a  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  a  mes- 
sage in  his  heart.  A  long  pause  she  had  made  be- 
fore she  asked  that  question,  because  she  was  even 


98        World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

then,  half  afraid  to  hear  the  answer  she  knew  he 
would  give.  As  it  was,  the  words  had  come  to  her 
lips  before  her  mind  was  quite  ready  to  have  them 
said. 

"He  sings,"  said  John  presently,  "he  sings  just 
for  the  joy  of  singing,  and  until  he  finds  someone 
who  can  share  the  joy  that  it  is.  There  are  no 
pennies  in  this  transaction.  There  are  some  who 
think  it's  a  matter  of  chance.  But  I  don't.  I  don't 
think  it's  chance  if  the  song's  all  right." 

"Why,  what  happens?" 

"Well,  up  and  down  the  street  he  goes  one 
day  and  the  next,  and  the  days  after.  And  there 
are  plenty  of  heads  looking  out  of  the  windows,  but 
it's  a  voice  he  wants  to  hear.  And  he  always  hears 
it  in  the  end,  or  at  least  he  thinks  he  does." 

"What  voice?" 

"A  voice  singing  little  snatches  of  his  song.  A 
heart  that  has  picked  up  a  stave  of  his  music  and, 
perhaps  all  unconsciously,  is  singing  it  to  itself. 
He's  standing  at  a  corner  of  a  street  where  the 
quick-set  villas  turn  into  a  row  of  mansions  of  lilac; 
his  head's  well  thrown  back  and  he's  singing  forv 
all  he's  worth  and  then,  suddenly  he  hears  a  voice 
catching  up  one  of  the  tuney  bits  and  singing  it  with 
him  and  he  stops.  And  there,  upstairs  in  one  of 
those  houses,  with  those  cobweb  lace  curtains  they 
have  over  some  of  the  windows  in  the  lilac  man- 
sions, he  locates  the  voice,  because,  though  he  has 
stopped,  it  still  goes  on — not  quite  so  sure  of  itself 
— but  it  goes  on.  And  then  he  knows." 

"Knows  what?" 


The  Window  that  Is  Closed        99 

"That  he's  found  his  mate." 

"But  how  can  he  be  sure?" 

"Because  love's  too  timid  to  throw  windows  open 
for  it,  or  fling  pennies  into  the  street.  Heaps  of 
people  think  they  can  love  like  that,  with  everyone 
hearing  the  clink  and  the  rattle  of  the  pennies  as 
they  clatter  on  to  the  pavements.  But  love  has  the 
smallest  voice  in  the  world.  It's  only  passion  that 
cries  out  loud.  Love  has  the  smallest  voice  and 
only  a  very  few  can  hear  it.  But  when  they  do, 
they  can  hear  it  from  the  other  end  of  the  world." 

She  leant  against  the  mesh  of  the  wire  netting, 
listening,  at  last  in  silence,  to  the  ending  of  his  tale. 

The  blackcap  had  long  since  vanished  into  the 
forest  of  branches;  but  she  had  forgotten  the 
blackcap  by  then.  They  might  have  been  anywhere 
for  all  that  she  realized  of  her  immediate  surround- 
ings. All  she  could  see  was  the  opening  of  those 
windows  on  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace  and  the 
shower  of  pennies  on  the  pavement  that  day 
when  she  would  be  married  to  Mr.  Skipwith. 

But  all  she  could  hear  was  the  sound  of  the 
smallest  voice  which,  with  its  penetrating  stillness, 
lifted  above  the  clamorous  cries  of  the  expediency 
and  came  to  her,  unbroken,  across  the  whole  turmoil 
of  the  metallic  sounds  of  life. 


Chapter  XIV:   Assessing  the  Income  of 
an  Author 

HERE  is  the  spirit  of  youth  in  love,  a  thing 
as   impossible   to   capture  with  words   as 
would  be  the  hope  to  arrest  its  sweetest 
note  in  the  throat  of  a  bird. 

After  that  story  of  the  Springtime  ballad-monger, 
Jill  gave  herself  up  to  a  world  of  dreams  and 
wandered  with  him  as  though  in  the  wildest  solitude 
through  all  those  holiday-making  crowds  in  the 
Zoological  Gardens.  No  one  seeing  them  there  in 
the  midst  of  that  jostling  turmoil  of  children,  upon 
that  carpet  of  paper  bags  and  in  that  odor  of 
oranges,  could  have  believed  how  much  alone  they 
were. 

For  this  is  what  it  amounts  to,  and  in  the  end 
is  all  a  matter  of  philosophy,  that  you  make  your 
world  with  whatever  materials  there  may  happen 
to  your  hand;  while  most  of  us,  like  bad  workmen, 
complain  of  our  tools.  But  nearly  any  tool  is  good 
enough,  as  the  old  workmen  would  have  told  you, 
who  did  some  of  the  most  beautiful  carving  and 
executed  some  of  the  most  wonderful  masonry  before 
ever  there  was  a  machine  to  make  a  chisel,  or  a 
lathe  to  turn  an  instrument  to  their  liking. 

100 


Assessing  the  Income  of  an  Author   101 

The  Zoological  Gardens  on  a  Bank  Holiday  are 
poor  material  for  a  pair  of  lovers  with  which  to 
make  their  solitude.  But  a  cunning  craftsman,  one 
in  the  tips  of  whose  fingers  is  the  love  of  his  work, 
he  can  do  it.  Before  that  tale  of  his  was  finished, 
John  had  converted  that  pandemonium  of  London 
holiday-makers  into  the  stillness  you  find  in  a  coun- 
try lane,  where  the  long  trailers  of  the  brambles, 
lifting  and  curling  up  above  the  hedge-tops,  are  the 
only  things  with  the  impulse  of  motion  to  the  winds 
that  blow  across  on  their  way  to  the  fields  beyond. 

It  was  in  the  essence  of  John  Grey  to  make  his 
world  for  himself  and  just  as  he  went  along.  It 
was  in  the  essence  of  those  who  dwelt  in  Prince  of 
Wales's  Terrace  to  submit  to  its  being  a  persistent 
revelation  through  the  facts  of  life  with  which  they 
were  brought  in  contact.  Poverty,  for  example,  if 
it  came  their  way,  made  a  poor  thing  of  the  whole 
world.  Wealth  enriched  it  by  just  so  much  as  riches 
could  buy. 

With  this  philosophy,  possessions,  pride  and 
power,  all  are  essentials  to  a  reasonable  world. 
Deprived  of  these,  life  has  every  aspect  of  being  a 
dismal  failure.  Yet  life,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is 
exactly  the  same.  There  is  an  intrinsic  quality  in 
it  as  also  in  all  its  elements  which,  when  once  you 
have  discovered  it,  can  be  made  out  of  any  circum- 
stance whatsover. 

The  gold  which  the  grave-digger  claims  as  a 
perquisite  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  corpse  may  be 
made  into  a  pin  with  which  you  bind  the  scarf  about 
your  baby's  neck.  It  is  no  less  a  joy  to  the  grave- 


102      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

digger  who  sells  that  gold  to  buy  a  few  pots  of 
beer,  than  it  is  to  you  who,  in  happy  ignorance  of 
the  last  state  in  which  it  existed,  buy  it  to  adorn 
your  baby's  clothing.  In  one  case  it  may  be  senti- 
ment and  a  joy  to  the  sentimentalist;  in  the  other 
there  is  something  of  gross  materialism  about  it 
and  a  joy  to  the  realist. 

Yet  it  is  the  same  gold.  Nothing  has  happened, 
except  the  form  of  its  presentation,  to  change  that 
first  intrinsic  quality  of  kingship  amongst  metals  it 
possessed  when  it  lay  in  the  earth  of  the  miner's 
claim.  Only  its  appearance  has  altered  and  if  ap- 
pearances are  your  standard  in  the  world,  then,  by 
the  time  it  reaches  your  baby's  neck,  you  have  long 
since  lost  all  appreciation  of  the  thing  it  really  is. 

John  Grey  found  that  the  intrinsic  quality  of  life 
was  beauty,  wherefore  he  kept  his  recognition  of  it 
in  anything  and  everything  that  came  to  his  hand. 

In  pursuit  of  this  inherent  purpose,  he  certainly 
was  presented  with  many  difficulties,  of  which  this 
marriage  with  all  its  responsibilities  was  by  no 
means  the  least.  But  he  had  belief,  which,  in  an 
uncertain  world,  is  better  than  any  knowledge.  He 
did  not  know  how  to  provide  against  those  moments 
when  there  would  be  no  coal  in  the  box  outside  the 
door,  or  the  cupboard  would  be  empty  of  supplies, 
but  implicitly  he  believed  that  he  would.  With  no 
little  amount  of  courage,  he  told  Jill  of  these  pos- 
sible contingencies,  at  the  same  time  assuring  her 
she  need  have  no  fear. 

"It   doesn't   happen   often,"    said   he,    and   for- 


Assessing  the  Income  of  an  Author  103 

tunately  did  not  see  the  instant's  expression  of  the 
old  fear  in  her  eyes. 

"But  when  you're  looking  after  things,"  he  went 
on  with  enthusiasm,  "of  course  it  won't  happen  at 
all.  I  buy  things  sometimes  I  don't  want  and 
that  runs  away  with  money  in  a  rotten  way.  You 
see  money  comes  in  lumps — that's  the  worst  of  it. 
And  when  you  get  ten  pounds  one  day,  you  go  about 
feeling  that  you're  making  ten  pounds  a  week  and 
live  at  the  rate  of  five  hundred  a  year  till  the  next 
morning.  It's  all  wrong,  I  know.  But  you  won't 
let  me  do  that.  I  know  you  won't.  Of  course,  I 
can  get  odd  little  bits  for  poems — a  guinea  a  time — 
almost  whenever  I  like.  But  poems  don't  pay  and 
yet  I'd  sooner  write  poems  than  anything  else. 
Stories  have  to  be  invented,  but  a  poem's  just  there; 
all  you  have  to  do  is  pick  it  up,  like  a  colored 
pebble  that  catches  your  eye  on  the  sea-shore.  You 
just  pick  it  up  and  start  polishing  it  and  sometimes 
it  comes  out  like  an  onyx  and  sometimes  it's  only 
just  a  Scotch  pebble  and  sometimes  it's  nothing  but 
a  dull  bit  of  clay  that  won't  take  a  polish  at  all. 
I've  written  one  since  I  came  back.  Shall  I  read 
it  to  you?" 

His  eyes  were  lighted  up  like  a  child's  expectant 
of  a  reward  for  good  conduct.  It  would  have 
needed  the  hardest  of  hearts  to  refuse  him  the  in- 
terest he  asked. 

"Go  on — read  it,"  she  said,  smiling,  and  in  a  sec- 
ond he  had  it  whipped  out  of  his  pocket  and  was 
reading  it  to  her  there  in  the  midst  of  those  Bank 
Holiday  crowds  in  the  Zoological  Gardens. 


104      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

London,  like  the  fierce  sun  in  summer  heavens 

Burns  itself  out  with  life  and  endless  passings  to  and  fro, 

But  you  and  I  will  find  earth's  quiet  places — 
Make  Life  a  woodland  freshet  where  the  mosses  grow. 

Let  them  beat  up  and  down  their  weary  pavements! 

They  needs  must  drink  the  wine  who  tread  the  unrelenting  press. 
We  shall  lie  down  and  plunge  our  wind-scorched  faces 

In  that  white  water  singing  through  our  wilderness. 

Give  them  the  music  of  their  clanging  cymbals 
Who  best  can  make  of  Life  a  pageant  passing  by; 

We'll  have  the  blackbird's  flute  in  sudden,  eager  phrases 
The  lark's  diapason  in  the  cathedreled  sky. 

Is  Life  the  finer,  hammered  on  an  anvil? 

Flung  in  the  furnace?     Hastened  to  shape  within  the  mold? 
Let's  take  it,  you  and  I,  in  lingering  fingers 

And  turn  it  to  beauty  out  of  the  virgin  gold. 

Nor  ever  let  us  grieve  if  it  remain  unfinished, 

A  thing  despised  of  commerce  in  the  noiseful  market  place 

It  is  not  all  to  sell — more  joy's  in  making. 

"I  haven't  finished  the  last  verse,"  said  he.  "It's 
rough  there.  I  want  a  new  polishing  rag." 

"Are  you  going  to  give  that  to  me?"  she  asked. 

"What — to  keep  it,  do  you  mean?  For  your- 
self?" 

"Yes — to  keep  it — always — for  myself." 

"Do  you  really  mean  you  like  it  as  much  as  all 
that?" 

She  could  not  help  laughing  at  the  ingenuousness 
of  delight  in  his  surprise. 

"Of  course  I  do.    Did  you  think  I  wouldn't?" 

"I  didn't  know." 

It  was  more  just  merely  than  that  she  liked  it. 


Assessing  the  Income  of  an  Author   105 

Even  with  the  dream  he  had  brought  her  that  morn- 
ing, her  battle,  she  knew,  was  still  for  fighting  in 
Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace.  And  here  was  a  ban- 
ner, or  a  battle-cry — something  to  give  her  courage 
when  she  was  faint  of  heart. 

He  held  out  the  paper  on  which  it  was  written. 
She  took  it  and  read  it  all  through  again,  while  he 
watched  her  eyes,  guessing  the  lines  she  came  to 
and  feeling  pins  and  needles  all  through  his  veins 
once  that  he  knew  she  cared  for  what  he  had  done. 

He  had  been  about  to  say  that  he  felt  he  ought 
to  give  up  writing  Poetry,  because,  as  he  had  in- 
formed her  and  as  all  the  world  knows,  Poetry 
did  not  pay.  But  this,  of  course,  made  quite  another 
matter  of  it  and  when,  folding  up  the  piece  of  paper 
and  just  before  she  slipped  it  inside  her  dress,  she 
put  it  to  her  lips  and  he  felt  on  his  own  the  kiss  she 
gave  it,  then  he  knew  there  were  a  thousand  poems 
to  be  written  and  every  single  one  of  them  for  her. 

"Anyhow,"  said  he,  when  he  had  informed  her 
of  this,  "it's  not  going  to  prevent  me  from  doing 
other  work  that  pays  better.  Poems  can  be  written 
anywhere,  any  time.  I've  written  one  with  burnt 
match-sticks  on  an  old  envelope,  when  I  hadn't  got 
a  pencil.  Besides  you  see,  if  I  wrote  a  thousand 
and  sold  them  all  at  a  guinea  apiece,  that  'ud 
be " 

He  could  not  quite  bring  himself  to  say  it  would 
be  a  thousand  and  fifty  pounds.  That  was  stretch- 
ing imagination  just  a  bit  too  far.  Possibly  he 
could  not  write  so  many  as  that,  or  if  he  did,  then 
they  would  not  all  be  sold.  But  it  was  in  the  bounds 


106      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

of  conception  for  him  to  allow  fifty  pounds  a  year 
if  he  had  any  luck  at  all. 

"Let's  make  a  list,"  he  said  suddenly,  "and  see 
what  I  can  make,"  whereupon  they  seized  the  op- 
portunity of  an  empty  seat  and  sat  down. 

When  the  sum  of  his  possible  earnings  was 
totaled,  by  Jill  ostensibly  with  fingers  drumming  on 
her  knee,  by  John  secretly,  with  unseen  fingers 
drumming  in  his  mind,  it  amounted  to  a  hundred 
and  seventy-three  pounds. 

"You  see,  I  can  make  money,"  said  he.  "It 
isn't  as  if  we  were  absolutely  poor.  That's  three 
pounds  ten  a  week,  if  it  weren't  in  lumps.  That's 
practically  ten  shillings  a  day — well — my  good- 
ness!" At  that  moment  there  was  a  shilling  in  his 
pocket.  He  turned  it  over  and  over  in  his  fingers. 
"A  good  many  people  get  along  comfortably  on 
less  than  that.  And  mind  you,"  he  added,  "I'm 
only  at  the  beginning.  I  shall  make  more  than  that. 
There's  one  author  I  know  makes  seven  hundred  a 
year  and,  of  course,  the  big  poets  make  thousands, 
but  they  call  it  work  then  and  they  do  it  every  morn- 
ing in  a  study  with  the  door  shut.  I  wrote  that  poem 
in  a  public  house." 

"Why  in  a  public  house?"  she  asked. 

"Because  I  could  get  a  pen  and  a  pot  of  ink  and 
a  table  to  write  on  and  it  only  cost  me  a  pint  of 
beer.  But  I  shall  make  more  than  a  hundred  and 
seventy — you  see  if  I  don't — and  it'll  never  be  ham- 
mered on  an  anvil  if  I  can  help  it.  We'll  make  it 
together  you  and  I " 

"Out  of  the  virgin  gold,"   said  she;  and  when 


Assessing  the  Income  of  an  Author   107 

she  said  that,  there  came  a  lump  rushing  up  into  his 
throat  and  the  effort  to  swallow  it  made  his  eyes 
all  hot. 

Notwithstanding  that  here  is  a  world  where 
chartered  accountants  thrive  at  every  corner,  such 
talk  as  this  carries  more  conviction  with  it  to  some 
than  all  the  carefully  reasoned  calculations  of  com- 
mon-sense. With  common-sense  you  say:  "We  must 
allow  for  unforeseen  contingencies.  There  are 
always  miscellaneous  and  unexpected  expenses. 
There  are  possible  doctor's  bills.  There's  the  rainy 
day."  There  are,  indeed,  some  of  us  who  live  just 
like  the  Irish  gardener,  waiting  with  his  watering 
can,  and  you  know  what  he  did  that  for. 

With  common-sense,  we  reduce  life  to  the  quality 
of  a  funeral  procession  on  the  assumption  that  it  is 
more  pleasurable  to  be  surprised  at  finding  it  a 
journey  in  a  four-wheeled  cab. 

To  Jill,  as  she  listened  to  it,  there  seemed  for  the 
moment  more  truth  in  John's  list  and  plans,  set  out 
there  on  the  back  o£  a  well-thumbed  piece  of  paper, 
than  in  all  the  reason  and  facts  to  which  she  had 
been  submitted  for  two  whole  days  in  Prince  of 
Wales's  Terrace.  The  one  had  chilled  her  with  the 
fear  of  life  and  all  its  responsibilities  into  a  re- 
luctant submission.  This  talk  of  John's  had  won 
her,  just  as  a  bird  wins  its  mate,  by  the  sheer,  thrill- 
ing magic  of  its  song. 

He  was  such  a  child!  Always  she  had  known 
that.  Something,  while  she  was  there  beside  him, 
gave  her  the  longing  to  hoard  and  guard  for  him 
that  money  that  came  in  in  lumps.  He  had  the 


108      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

faculty  for  making  her  see  him  bringing  it  to  her, 
like  a  child  bringing  the  absurd  things  children  find 
and  hoard.  He  had  the  faculty  of  making  her  see 
herself  storing  it  in  some  hidden  chest  until  it  as- 
sumed gigantic  proportions. 

"Did  you  ever  buy  a  money  box?"  she  asked  him. 

He  had  bought  three.  Ones  you  cannot  open 
till  they  are  filled  up  to  the  top. 

"Not  a  bit  of  good,"  he  complained. 

"Why  not?" 

"Oh,  it's  all  rot.  They  do  open.  It's  a  bit  of 
a  job.  You  have  to  get  a  hammer  and  an  iron 
chisel.  Then  you  can't  use  the  box  any  more." 

"Why  didn't  you  wait  till  they  were  filled  up?" 

He  looked  at  her  quickly.  She  was  quite  serious. 
He  felt  the  milled  edge  of  the  shilling  in  his  pocket 
to  make  quite  sure  it  was  not  a  half-penny.  Shillings 
play  that  trick  if  you  do  not  keep  a  constant  eye 
on  them.  Then  he  guffawed:  "Bless  your  heart!" 
And  in  the  tone  of  one  who  has  more  wisdom  of 
the  world  than  ever  to  be  unable  to  love  a  woman 
because  of  her  inimitable  ignorance. 


Chapter  XV :  The  Human  Animal 

THERE  came  a  bunch  of  children  who  sat  on 
the  seat  beside  them,  sucking  Edinburgh 
Rock.  You  know  the  noise. 

They  had  suffered  lemonade,  oranges  and  ginger- 
bread. Suffered  is  not  the  word.  They  had  been 
oblivious.  But  even  lovers  cannot  be  oblivious  to 
five  children  all  sucking  Edinburgh  Rock.  It  is  also 
an  unhandy  size  for  small  mouths.  Five  children 
sucking  it  are  as  good  as  any  one  boy  sucking  a 
lemon  in  front  of  a  German  band.  They  utterly 
incapacitate  a  Pied  Piper  from  playing  his  tunes. 

John  looked  wildly  about  him  and  his  eye  fell  on 
a  row  of  cages  where  special  foreign  birds  were 
kept.  A  keeper  was  standing  by  one  of  the  doors. 

It  was  the  discovery  of  the  milled  edge  on  the 
coin  in  his  pocket  which  decided  him.  He  took  hold 
of  Jill's  arm  and  led  her  over  to  the  cages. 

"Could  we  just  have  a  look  at  the  birds  inside?" 
he  asked. 

There  was  chance  here  for  such  actual  seclusion 
as  they  had  not  experienced  yet.  John  even  saw 
the  possibility  of  moments,  when  the  keeper  was 
not  looking,  of  holding  Jill's  hand,  of  conveying 
to  it  that  pressure  which,  in  public  places,  means 
everything  to  the  utmost  limits  of  your  imagination. 

109 


no     World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Each  cage  was  divided  into  an  inner  and  outer 
compartment,  the  latter,  certainly  in  full  view  of 
the  public  outside.  It  was  those  inner  compart- 
ments John  had  had  his  eyes  on.  There  was  a 
door  opening  from  each  cage  into  the  next.  Op- 
portunity was  here — as  they  say  in  the  advertise- 
ments— good  opportunity  for  a  smart  youth.  Al- 
ready John  was  patting  himself  on  the  back. 

With  that  eagerness  to  display  his  knowledge  and 
earn  his  tip,  which  completely  obsesses  all  those  in 
office,  the  keeper  took  them  from  one  cage  to 
another,  talking  like  a  showman  all  the  while,  and 
most  conspicuously  in  those  compartments  where 
the  general  public  could  share  the  advantage  of 
hearing  what  he  said. 

"  'Ere,"  said  he,  "  'ere's  a  strange  bird.  Queer 
lookin'  beggar,  ain't  *e?"  He  disturbed  a  sleepy- 
looking  creature  from  its  enclosure,  when  it  flew 
round  and  round  the  cage  about  their  heads. 

"This  bird,"  he  began  with  a  deep  breath,  "is  a 
native  of  East  Africa.  When  Major  Rawlinson 
went  out  on  his  expedition  to  Central  East  Africa  in 

1903 " 

There  was  an  awjful  note  in  his  voice.  It  was 
the  note  of  an  alarm  clock  that  has  been  wound  up 
to  its  fullest  pitch  and  you  know  will  take  an  in- 
terminable time  to  run  down.  The  deep  breath 
that  had  been  the  last  turn  of  the  key.  He  had, 
no  doubt,  been  more  or  less  wound  up  all  day  and 
was  only  waiting  for  this  splendid  moment  to  set 
himself  in  clockwork  motions. 

And  not  only  that,  but  it  was  attracting  people 


The  Human  Animal  ill 

about  the  cage.  Children — indeed  those  same  five 
with  the  Edinburgh  Rock  still  sticking  out  of 
their  mouths — were  climbing  up  to  peer  through 
the  bars.  Women  with  hats  a  little  bit  on  one  side 
and  men  with  hats  entirely  on  one  side  were  crowd- 
ing behind  them.  They  all  stared  open-mouthed. 
The  sight  and  sound  of  a  man  raising  his  voice  in 
a  public  place  is  sufficient  in  England — in  every 
other  country  too,  I  suppose — to  draw  a  crowd  of 
just  so  many  as  can  hear  him.  Often  many  more 
than  that.  And  this  keeper's  voice  was  just  the 
voice  that  attracts.  It  never  stopped  for  want 
of  a  word.  It  never  hesitated  in  deference  to  the 
sense  of  what  he  was  saying. 

They  had  come  into  that  cage  to  escape  the  in- 
creasing discomfort  of  the  pressure  of  the  crowd. 
Certainly  that  had  been  achieved.  But  a  worse 
terror  had  been  added  to  them.  Suddenly,  and 
without  any  warning  or  preparation,  they  discov- 
ered themselves  on  show.  Jill  felt  like  the  fat 
woman,  John,  like  the  boneless  man,  exposed  for 
exhibition  in  a  menagerie. 

For  all  that  he  talked  of  the  East  African  bird, 
the  keeper  might  have  been  pointing  out  their 
peculiarities  to  the  crowd.  It  was  upon  them 
that  every  eye  was  fixed.  Nobody  in  all  that  con- 
course cared,  it  seems  permissible  in  these  circum- 
stances to  say — a  damn — about  the  bird.  Yet  in 
both  of  them — too  tender-hearted  for  contingencies 
of  this  nature — there  was  that  sensitive  inability  to 
be  so  rude  as  to  leave  him  to  his  talk. 

You  cannot  be  inconsiderate  to  a  man  who  drops 


112      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

his  aitches.  He  might  pick  them  up  again  at  your 
expense. 

So  there  they  were,  trapped,  caged  and  to  all 
appearances  the  most  popular  exhibit  in  the  Zoo. 
If  Jill  had  tried  to  escape  observation  in  the  crowds, 
most  signally  and  most  utterly  she  had  failed. 

There  is  some  instinct,  low  down  in  human  nature 
— of  which  the  showman  of  the  menagerie  of  freaks 
takes  good  account — disclosing  a  morbid  fascina- 
tion for  the  sight  of  a  fellow-being  behind  iron 
bars.  It  is  the  more  morbid  because  it  admits  of 
no  realization  of  the  fact  that  there  are  two  sides, 
even  to  an  iron  bar.  Those  without  look  much  the 
same  to  those  within. 

"Can't  we  get  out  of  this?"  whispered  Jill  in 
almost  tearful  desperation.  "It  feels  as  if  the 
whole  of  London  were  looking  at  us." 

But  knowing  little  of  her  fear  of  discovery  and 
that  deeper  training  in  the  school  of  appearances, 
John  only  laughed.  He  had  not  seen  the  look  of 
despair  in  her  eyes. 

Those  noses  pressed  against  the  bars,  that 
heterogeneous  collection  of  staring  eyes  and  gaping 
mouths,  were  almost  as  funny  a  picture  of  human 
nature  as  he  could  well  conceive.  For  there  was 
man-kind,  seeing  itself  in  a  cage  in  the  Zoological 
Gardens  and  flocking  and  staring  as  it  had  never 
flocked  or  stared  before. 

Here  was  humor  for  anyone  who  had  the  wit 
to  see  it.  John  was  beginning  to  laugh.  The 
realization  was  being  thrust  upon  him  that  the 
human  being  after  all  is  an  extraordinary  animal, 


The  Human  Animal  113 

far  more  extraordinary  than  the  mandrill,  or  the 
okapi,  or  even  the  better  known  hippopotamus. 
You  have  only  to  put  it  in  a  cage  behind  iron  bars, 
when  all  its  movement  become  as  stilted  and  ridicu- 
lous as  those  of  any  other  caged  beast  out  of  the 
freedom  of  its  natural  evironment. 

As  the  idea  grew  upon  him,  side  by  side  with 
laughter,  John  put  it  to  the  test.  He  buttoned  up 
his  coat  and  a  man  in  the  crowd  pushed  another 
aside  to  get  a  better  look  at  him.  He  blew  his 
nose  and  two  girls  nudged  each  other  in  the  ribs. 
He  scratched  the  side  of  his  head  and  one  old 
woman  burst  out  laughing. 

Monkeys  are  not  such  odd  little  creatures  after 
all. 

"It  was  when  Major  Rawlinson,  that  intrepid 
traveler  was  two  'undred  miles  inland  from  Somoli- 
land,"  continued  the  keeper,  "that  'e  'appened  to 
come  across  this  extraordinary  feathered  beast." 
And  for  all  the  world  and  for  the  way  the  crowd 
stared  outside,  he  might  have  been  talking  of  them. 

John  was  laughing  till  the  tears  were  beginning 
to  swell  and  overflow  in  his  eyes,  when  suddenly 
he  caught  sight  of  Jill's  face.  She  was  staring,  full 
of  apprehension  across  the  crowd. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked. 

"Mr.  Skipwith,"  she  whispered,  "that  man  in  a 
bowler  hat  coming  down  the  path.  I'd  forgotten 
he  often  comes  to  the  Zoo." 

She  turned  her  back  on  the  crowd  while  John 
watched  his  approach.  Was  that  the  man  she 
would  have  married?  Doubtless  you  cannot  see 


114      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

a  man's  heart  at  any  distance,  but  you  know,  when 
he  has  a  stubby  gray  beard  that  ill-conceal  a  pair 
of  thick  red  lips,  that  he  is  no  expression  of 
Romance  for  a  girl  of  twenty-two.  Was  that  the 
man  she  would  have  married!  John  wished  to  God 
he  had  never  seen  him. 

Of  course,  the  crowd  attracted  him — the  sight  of 
the  human  exhibits  no  less.  He  stood  like  the  rest 
staring  blankly  at  first,  then  catching  a  glimpse  of 
Jill's  side  face  with  recognition. 

One  swift  look  passed  between  John  and  him,  and 
to  John  it  was  as  a  sudden  revelation;  such  a 
revelation  as  when  for  the  first  time  you  meet  the 
mother  of  the  girl  you  love. 

That,  if  she  only  knew  it,  is  the  most  trying 
moment  in  the  lifetime  of  a  girl's  Romance.  Like 
mother,  like  daughter.  In  that  mother's  face,  a 
man  sees  the  whole  stretches  of  the  years  before 
him;  he  learns  something  which  love  and  passion 
and  youth  have  hidden  from  him  securely  until  that 
-moment. 

"In  a  paper  'e  read  before  the  Zoological  So- 
ciety," the  keeper  went  on,  now  raising  his  voice 
a  little,  the  better  to  reach  the  increasing  propor- 
tions of  his  audience,  "Major  Rawlinson  declared 
Vd  made  quite  a  pet  of  the  bird  before  'e  come 
'ome." 

John  slipped  the  shilling  hastily  into  his  hand. 
It  was  like  throwing  a  boot  at  an  alarm  clock,  but 
nothing  like  hitting  it.  They  turned  and  crept 
away,  while  in  the  distance,  they  could  hear  the 
keeper  still  addressing  the  crowd: 


The  Human  Animal  115 

"It  would  sit  on  the  Major's  shoulder  while  'e 

was  a-eatin'  of  his  food -"  they  heard  him  say 

and  they  fled  into  the  comparative  silence  of  the 
parrot-house. 


Chapter  XVI :  A  By-Product  of  "Advice 

EFORE  they  parted  that  day,  everything  had 
been  arranged.  If  in  the  first  encounter 
they  had  secured  a  tactical  victory  in  Prince 
of  Wales's  Terrace,  they  would  appear  to  have  lost 
every  advantage  they  had  gained  the  moment  John 
appeared  upon  the  field. 

They  were  to  be  married  secretly.  No  other 
measure  was  possible.  At  home  already,  Jill  knew 
she  was  being  watched  by  the  vigilance  of  her  father 
who,  like  all  Englishmen,  conversant  with  the  works 
of  Conan  Doyle,  believed  himself  an  expert  de- 
tective. Now,  having  been  seen  by  Mr.  Skipwith 
on  exhibition  in  the  Zoological  Gardens,  it  was  sure 
to  reach  their  ears,  when  observation  of  her  move- 
ments would  be  stricter  than  ever. 

They  must  be  married  secretly. 

But  how — when  it  is  the  first  time  in  your  life 
you  have  done  such  a  thing  and  are  feeling  as  if 
the  whole  world  were  looking  on,  with  one  hand 
full  of  confetti  and  the  other  clutching  at  an  old 
boot — how  can  such  a  maneuver  be  accomplished? 

In  matters  of  this  kind  where  the  legal  conduct 
of  life  was  concerned  and  being  one's  own  lawyer 
was  worth  more  than  twenty-six  and  eight  pence, 

116 


A  By-Product  of  Advice         117 

or  say  nineteen,  John  always  appealed  to  Mrs. 
Rowse. 

Without  committing  herself  to  any  admission  on 
the  subject,  the  knowledge  Mrs.  Rowse  had  of  the 
law,  argued  a  delicate  intimacy  with  Police  Court 
procedure.  She  said  she  gathered  it,  time  to  time, 
from  her  husband. 

When  under  an  anesthetic  a  lady  gives  way  to 
language  that  makes  one  look  up  Burke's  Landed 
Gentry  to  see  who  she  was  before  she  married, 
there  is  always  this  excuse  to  be  made  for  her. 

Had  she  been  asked,  Mrs.  Rowse  would  prob- 
ably not  have  known  where  a  single  London  Police 
Court  was  to  be  found.  It  was  undeniable,  however, 
that  she  knew  a  lot  about  the  Law  and  the  very 
next  morning,  John  appealed  to  her. 

"Mrs.  Rowse,"  he  said,  "if  you  wanted  to  be 
married  in  a  terrific  hurry — married  quietly,  you 
know — how  would  you  set  about  it?" 

She  was  dusting  the  mantlepiece,  wondering  all 
the  time  how  she  could  keep  her  husband  from 
remembering  that  this  was  the  day  he  had  breast 
of  mutton,  because  she  had  already  spent  the 
money  on  having  his  boots  soled.  At  the  sound  of 
John's  question,  she  started.  There  w*as  an  ex- 
clamation on  her  lips  before  she  could  stop  it.  Into 
the  bargain,  she  nearly  dropped  the  old  brass 
candlestick  she  was  polishing. 

"Oh,  my  good  goodness,  Mr.  Grey!"  said  she. 
"I  never  thought  you  was  one  to  get  into  that  sort 
of  trouble." 


n8     World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

He  declared  he  was  in  no  such  trouble  at  all. 
It  was  only  that  he  wanted  the  information  for  a 
story  he  was  writing. 

That  eased  ker  rakid  externally,  but  insensibly  she 
lost  interest  withiM. 

"Thought  it  was  you  was  going  to  get  married," 
she  said,  with  all  those  palpable  signs  of  relief  which 
are  such  exquisite  expressions  of  regret. 

So  emphatically  did  he  exclaim  "Not  at  all!" 
that  she  regained  an  instinctive  interest  and  was  at 
once  prepared  to  tell  him  all  she  knew.  It  was  no 
little.  Lizzie,  her  daughter — the  one  who  stuck 
labels  on  the  jam  jars  at  Cross  and  Blackwells  for 
a  salary  they  are  prepared  to  inform  you  is  adequate 
in  every  way — Lizzie,  since  that  Sunday  when  they 
went  to  Denham,  had  been  married. 

All  that  Mrs.  Rowse  had  been  through  to  get 
Lizzie  married,  and  married  quickly,  she  affirmed, 
was  enough  to  give  anyone  an  idea  about  it. 

"She'd  been  walkin*  out  with  this  young  fella 
for  some  time,"  said  Mrs.  Rowse,  who,  in  prepa- 
ration for  all  she  had  to  say  was  already  leaning 
for  support  on  to  the  back  of  a  chair,  "and  in 
Peabody  Buildin's,  it's  'ard  to  keep  yer  eye  on  a 
girl,  everybody  steppin'  up  and  down  them  stairs 
like  they  do.  I'd  done  me  best.  I'd  warned  'er. 
'Keep  *im  at  arm's  length,'  I  said  to  'er.  But  the 
lengthi  of  a  girl's  arm  stuck  out  straight  in  front 
of  'er  don't  seem  to  be  much  when  she  gets  'erself 
took  proper  with  a  chap.  I  dare  say  it's  long 
enough  other  ways  to  go  three  times  round  'is  neck. 
Any'ow,  she  comes  one  day  to  me  and  she  says, 


A  By-Product  of  Advice         119 

'Mother,  we're  goin'  to  get  married.'     I  took  at  'er 
quite  straight  and  I  said :  'My  girl,'  I  said " 

In  the  midst  of  this  sentence,  Mrs.  Rowse  wiped 
her  face  all  over  with  the  corner  of  her  apron, 
dropped  the  cloth  with  which  she  had  been  dusting 
the  mantelpiece  and,  stooping  to  pick  it  up,  broke 
into  a  fit  of  coughing. 

Between  one  thing  and  another,  John  gathered 
she  had  told  her  daughter,  without  any  choice  of 
words,  that  she  was  going  to  have  a  baby.  This 
opinion,  indeed,  was  confirmed  in  Lizzie's  reply,  for 
Lizzie  had  sworn  she  was  not  and  apparently  had 
got  so  hot  in  the  face  over  it,  that  Mrs.  Rowse  did 
not  mind  the  lie,  so  long  as  she  was  quite  certain, 
of  the  truth. 

Her  answer  appeared  to  have  been: 

"The  proof  of  the  puddin's  in  the  eatin\"  which 
was  a  way  of  putting  it  that  would  not  have  oc- 
curred to  everybody. 

Anyhow  she  had  gone  straight  to  the  priest — the 
priest  who  had  recommended  her  to  John — the 
priest  at  Sardinia  Street  Chapel. 

"But  'e  wouldn't  'ave  nothin'  to  do  with  it,"  de- 
clared Mrs.  Rowse,  "when  'e  'card  the  fella  come 
from  Australia,  an'  'e  didn't  know  nothm*  about 
'im,  'e  said:  'No,  I  won't  'ave  nothin'  to  do  with 
it,  not  till  I  know  the  sort  o'  man  'e  is  and  Vs  been 
proved  in  the  Parish.'  So  when  he'd  finished  with 
'is  'ummin'  and  'arrin',  I  went  off  to  the  Registry 
Office." 

It  seems  at  the  Registry  Office  they  had  treated 
her  very  little  better.  Papers  had  had  to  be  signed. 


120      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Statements  had  to  be  sworn  to.  All  this  had  been 
very  annoying  because,  according  to  Mrs.  Rowse,  it 
was  a  very  different  matter  to  swear  a  thing  than 
just  to  have  to  say  it.  For  instance,  she  had  been 
compelled  to  swear  the  boy  was  over  twenty-one. 

UI  wouldn't  'ave  minded  just  sayin'  it,"  said  she, 
"and  I  wouldn't  'ave  let  anyone  call  me  a  liar,  not 
twice  I  wouldn't.  But  it  made  me  go  'ot  all  over 
'avin'  to  swear  on  me  oath." 

There  wasn't,  she  declared,  so  much  fuss  about 
getting  married  when  she  was  a  girl.  And  having 
been  in  the  same  sort  of  hurry  herself,  it  had  come 
all  the  more  annoying  when  they  put  these  absurd 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  her  daughter.  She  did 
not  know  what  the  world  was  coming  to.  It  was 
getting  hard  enough  to  be  honest  on  any  account, 
but  from  what  she  could  see  of  it,  they  didn't  want 
people  even  to  try  nowadays;  much  less  did  they 
want  them  to  succeed. 

However,  the  upshot  of  it  was  that  Lizzie  was 
married,  and  in  six  months'  time  everyone  in  Pea- 
body  Buildings  was  consulting  their  memory  as  to 
the  date  of  that  day  when  she  returned  in  style 
from  the  Registry  Office.  It  would  seem  as  if  there 
were  a  brain  cell,  specially  set  apart  for  the  in- 
delible record  of  these  events,  for  quite  a  lot 
remembered.  These  were  they  who,  full  of  sym- 
pathetic interest,  remarked  to  Mrs.  Rowse  how 
fortunate  it  was  her  daughter  had  not  had  to  wait 
for  a  family  so  long  as  some  they  knew. 

"I  know  a  few  in  this  building,"  Mrs.  Rowse  had 
replied,  and  in  relating  the  incident  she  reproduced 


A  By-Pro  duct  of  Advice         121 

exactly  her  tone  of  voice  together  with  all  the 
gestures  of  her  hands.  "I  know  a  few  'oo  'adn't 
the  decency  to  wait  at  all." 

The  sum  of  this  conversation,  while  it  gave  John 
but  little  insight  into  the  way  out  of  the  difficulties 
of  getting  married,  yet  brought  him  to  regard  a 
condition  of  matrimony  he  had  scarcely  thought  of 
before.  There  would  be  children.  He  sat  and 
stared  at  his  breakfast  until  it  grew  cold  on  the 
plate. 

For  some  reason  or  other  he  had  not  thought  of 
this.  He  was  just  in  love.  He  supposed  he  ought 
to  have  analyzed  his  feelings  more  closely,  but  he 
had  not  gone  so  far  even  as  to  discuss  the  matter 
with  Jill.  He  would  hardly  have  known  how  to 
begin  had  he  tried.  Indeed,  frankly,  had  he  been 
asked  whether  he  wanted  to  be  a  father,  he  would 
have  said:  "Not  all  at  once,"  or  some  such  phrase 
that  would  not  have  pledged  him  to  the  definite 
negative.  As  for  discussing  the  matter  with  her, 
it  would  have  seemed  like  picking  rosebuds  to  pieces 
to  see  how  they  were  made. 

Here  then  again,  he  was  coming  round  a  sharp 
turning  upon  this  new  world  of  reality  once  more. 
With  a  snatching  of  his  mind,  he  seized  the  ring- 
master's whip  and  cracked  it.  Surely  it  was  not 
necessary  to  have  children  unless  you  wanted  them. 
As  equally  certain  it  was  quite  foolish  to  want  them 
if  you  could  not  afford  them. 

He  was  in  love — that  was  all.  It  was  like  hav- 
ing found  the  complete  fullness  of  beauty  in  the 
midst  of,  what  to  many,  doubtless,  was  a  dingy 


122      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

world.  It  had  no  purpose  except  in  first  being  what 
it  was.  The  fact  that  it  lifted  some  purpose  in  him 
as  moisture  is  sucked  up  into  the  furnace  of  the 
sun,  argued  to  him  no  purpose  in  the  thing  itself. 
Indeed  it  was  its  very  unconsciousness  of  purpose 
that  gave  it  the  full  essence  of  beauty.  To  make 
it  utilitarian  was  at  once  to  commercialize  it.  To 
commercialize  it  was  to  give  it  a  marked  value  which 
would  immediately  enable  anyone  to  capture  it  and 
put  it  on  their  mantlepiece,  when  idolatry  would 
follow  and  the  true  sense  of  worship  be  gone. 

There  was  a  picture  on  one  of  John's  walls — an 
old  oil  painting  he  had  picked  up  for  the  mere 
whistling  of  a  tune  in  the  Caledonian  Market.  A 
man,  writing  occasionally  about  art  for  the  news- 
papers, saw  it  one  day  and  advised  John  to  have 
it  valued. 

Notwithstanding  that  at  the  time  he  was  in  that 
chronic  state  of  the  need  for  ready  money,  John 
had  shaken  his  head. 

''Don't  think  I  will,"  said  he.  "I  don't  really 
know  whether  it's  an  old  master,  but  it's  very  beauti- 
ful to  me." 

"I  quite  agree  with  you,"  said  his  friend.  "It 
is  beautiful.  That's  what  makes  me  think  it's  a 
genuine  old  master.  You  never  get  that  sense  of 
beauty  in  copies  and  of  course  you  don't  get  it  in 
the  inferior  artists.  It  is  beautiful.  Take  it  to 
Christie's — just  for  your  own  satisfaction — just  to 
know  what  it's  worth.  It  might  be  worth  fifty 
pounds — might  be  worth  infinitely  more." 


A  By-Product  of  Advice         123 

Fifty  pounds!  More!  John  looked  at  the  pic- 
ture again  and  already  in  that  sudden  moment,  some 
of  the  simplicity  of  its  beauty  had  gone.  Though 
it  might  only  be  in  his  friend's  imagination,  yet  a 
price  had  been  put  upon  its  worth.  As  he  looked 
at  it  then  he  saw  fifty  pounds  in  bank  notes  or  golden 
sovereigns  and  insensibly  some  of  the  quiet  spirit 
of  beauty  it  had  given  him  had  vanished. 

"Good  God!"  he  had  exclaimed  in  a  sudden 
paroxysm  of  anger.  "Get  out  of  the  room!  Isn't 
there  one  thing  left  in  the  world  one  can  appreciate 
and  value  without  thinking  of  it  in  terms  of  pounds, 
shillings  and  pence.  If  I  had  that  picture  valued  at 
Christie's  and  they  said  it  'ud  fetch  a  hundred 
pounds — a  hundred  pounds  and  all  that  inevitably 
means  to  my  pocket — it  'ud  lose  all  the  worth  it 
ever  had  to  me.  For  God's  sake  get  out  of  the 
room  and  take  your  commerce  into  Fleet  Street.  I 
hate  a  man  with  a  mind  like  yours." 

Assuming  John  to  be  mad,  the  friend  had  gone, 
when  for  a  whole  week  following  that  incident,  John 
had  turned  the  picture  with  its  face  to  the  wall  until 
he  so  longed  to  see  the  beauty  of  it  again  that  that 
commercial  valuation  had  been  purged  out  of  his 
mind. 

And  to  think  in  terms  of  utility  was  no  less  to 
commercialize  the  value  of  love.  In  those  moments 
of  his  importunate  Youth  he  wanted  Love,  just  for 
Love's  sake,  for  the  odor  of  its  blossom.  There  was 
time  enough  to  pick  the  fruit  when  the  petals  had 
fallen  and  the  tree  was  yielding. 


World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

V 

However,  the  only  result  of  staring  for  twenty 
minutes  at  the  wall-paper  was  a  realization  to  John 
that  the  bacon  was  cold  and  not  fit  to  eat.  Coming 
to  this  conclusion,  he  put  on  his  hat  and  went  with- 
out another  consideration  to  Sardinia  Street  Chapel. 


Chapter  XVII :  A  Confession 

THERE  is  as  much  difference  between  an  Eng- 
lish Roman  Catholic  priest  and  an  Irishman 
of  the  same  calling  as  there  is  between  a 
Presbyterian  minister  and  a  hunting  Parson. 

In  those  days — which  in  this  story  have  always 
been  a  dubious  matter  and  certainly  date  back  before 
the  construction  of  Kingsway — the  priest  at  the  old 
Sardinia  Street  Chapel  was  English  to  the  edges 
of  his  well-trimmed  nails  and  the  polish  of  his  boot- 
heels. 

John  rang  the  bell  of  the  Presbytery  in  Lincoln's 
Inn  and  waited  with  none  too  steady  a  beating  of 
his  heart.  Nevertheless,  he  believed  nothing  that 
Mrs.  Rowse  had  told  him  of  Father  Peake's  re- 
fusal to  marry  her  daughter  Lizzie.  Going  often 
and  like  a  child  to  pray  at  the  altar  of  the  Virgin 
or  the  shrine  of  St.  Joseph,  he  yet  was  no  student 
of  his  religion.  There  was,  he  felt  sure,  something 
at  the  back  of  Mrs.  Rowse's  story  which  called  for 
explanation.  In  bare  fact  it  may  have  been  true 
enough,  but  between  the  fact  and  the  essence,  there 
was  room  and  to  spare  in  all  Mrs.  Rowse's  stories 
for  the  whole  foundation  of  truth  completely  to  be 
lost  sight  of.  Probably  Father  Peake  did  refuse 

125 


126      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

to  marry  them  and  it  was  just  as  likely  he  had  never 
had  better  cause  for  refusal  in  his  life. 

There  was  no  reason,  however,  which  John  could 
see  for  the  likelihood  of  Father  Peake's  refusal  to 
marry  him.  He  was  in  love.  The  whole  world 
was  radiated  by  it.  That  tremor  which  comes  in 
the  air  over  the  sea  and  over  the  meadows,  over 
the  surface  of  the  river,  and  over  a  field  of 
corn,  a  tremor,  when  the  sun  is  heating  the  very 
heart  of  the  earth  as  though  the  air  were  a  shim- 
mering veil,  trembling  like  a  dragon  fly's  wings 
as  it  hovers  over  the  stream,  this  was  what  he  saw, 
everywhere  he  looked.  The  faces  of  the  people  he 
passed  in  the  street  were  all  illuminated  by  it.  It 
appeared  to  turn  the  sourest  expression  into  a  smile. 
Indeed  it  played  all  kinds  of  tricks  he  could  not 
have  accounted  for  had  he  tried.  He  did  not  even 
try. 

For  example,  it  made  grass  grow  up  between  the 
paving  stones  in  Fetter  Lane.  It  grew  in  tufts  at 
first,  tufts  for  which  he  arranged  his  steps  so  that 
he  trod  on  it  as  he  walked.  It  all  began  by  his  trying 
to  walk  on  the  lines  where  the  paving  stones  joined, 
varying  his  steps  to  achieve  his  object.  Then  the 
tufts  of  grass  began  to  grow  in  the  crevices. 

At  last  it  was  all  grass.  He  was  walking  in  a 
meadow.  He  was  out  in  the  country.  Before  he 
had  come  halfway  down  the  Lane,  he  felt  he  could, 
in  fact,  be  anywhere  he  pleased;  the  world  itself 
had  become  immaterial;  whatever  substance  there 
was  to  anything,  was  in  his  mind.  It  was  as  though 
he  had  on  his  finger  a  wishing  ring  and  had  merely 


A  Confession  127 

to  twist  it  round  to  the  first  vague  prompting  of 
inclination.  The  only  reason  he  could  see  why  he 
did  not  make  full  use  of  it,  why  he  did  not  go 
straightway  to  Persia  or  saunter  down  the  streets 
of  Bagdad,  was  because  Jill  was  not  there  to  ac- 
company him.  There  was  almost  a  tangible  thought 
in  his  mind  that  he  ought  to  be  quite  content  to  be 
walking  on  the  grass  in  Fetter  Lane. 

All  these  sensations — mere  balderdash  to  the 
modern  day  materialist — were  accompaniment  to  the 
consciousness  of  being  in  love.  He  came  down 
to  the  Presbytery  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  like  the 
Prince  in  a  fairy  tale  on  a  visit  to  the  wisest  man 
in  his  father's  kingdom.  The  fact  that  the  bottom 
of  his  trousers  were  frayed,  that  there  were  no 
cuff-links  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  destroyed  none  of  these 
illusions.  He  was  quite  unconscious  of  them.  As 
for  his  hat — well,  he  knew  that  he  wanted  a  new 
one.  But  if  a  new  one  could  not  buy  respect,  then 
certainly  an  old  one  could  not  keep  a  man  out  of 
the  country  of  his  dreams. 

The  noise  of  the  eighteenth  century  bell,  jangling 
in  the  far  distance  of  the  eighteenth  century  cor- 
ridors, became  his  first  link  with  reality.  At  the 
sound  of  it,  not  only  did  his  heart  begin  a  loud 
assurance  of  its  pulses,  but  he  grew  suddenly  aware 
of  the  frayed  edges  of  his  trousers,  of  the  loose 
cuffs  of  his  shirt.  He  made  ready  to  take  off  his 
hat  directly  he  was  admitted  within. 

Father  Peake  saw  him  in  that  bare  cold  room 
on  the  right  as  you  entered  the  door.  Beyond  the 
occasions  of  confession  in  the  chapel,  this  was  their 


128      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

first  meeting.  The  recommendation  of  Mrs.  Rowse 
had  been  by  letter. 

"And  what  can  I  do  for  you,  Mr.  Grey?"  he 
said,  rather  with  tight  lips,  rather  as  though  things 
could  be  done  by  machinery  and  done  promptly,  if 
only  people  would  be  sufficiently  precise  in  their  de- 
mands. 

Instead  therefore  of  coming  to  it  gradually,  of 
warming  to  it  through  all  the  gently  increasing 
temperatures  of  conversation  as  he  had  felt  he 
would  do,  John  found  himself  declaring  straight- 
away that  he  was  going  to  be  married. 

Father  Peake  nodded  his  head,  saying:  "Oh, 
yes,"  as  though  it  were  a  commodity  they  always 
kept  in  stock  by  reason  of  the  common  frequency 
with  which  it  was  required. 

It  was  disconcerting.  For  when  you  can  walk 
through  meadows  in  Fetter  Lane  and  it  is  a  mere 
matter  of  choice  that  you  are  not  sauntering  down 
the  streets  of  Bagdad;  when  it  seems  you  are  enter- 
ing life  through  a  golden  gate  and  a  flare  of  silver 
trumpets  might  be  the  least  you  could  expect  to 
greet  you,  it  is  a  disheartening  affair  to  have  the 
announcement  of  your  romance  made  in  such  cold 
and  calculating  terms  as  these,  as  though  on  a 
ballad-monger's  cornet  with  the  tin  showing  through 
the  coating  of  brass. 

Here  was  the  first  person  to  whom  John  had  told 
his  absorbing  secret.  Apart  from  the  possible  diffi- 
culties that  might  arise,  he  had  been  looking  for- 
ward to  this  moment.  In  no  small  measure,  that 
pleasurable  anticipation  had  contributed  to  the  ex- 


A  Concession  129 

traordinary  growth  of  grass  in  Fetter  Lane.  He 
had  imagined  a  warm  and  comfortable  talk,  tem- 
pered by  fatherly  and  good  advice  which  would  not 
materially  interfere  with  the  realization  of  his 
purpose.  This  was  like  going  into  a  shop  and  ask- 
ing for  sixpenny-worth  of  eggs;  not  even  stipulating 
moreover  that  they  should  be  fresh. 

Father  Peake  listened  with  eyes  that  opened  and 
closed  like  a  procession  of  numbers  indicating  items 
of  a  large  order  on  a  self-recording  balance.  When 
John  had  told  him  all  and  was  beginning  to  believe 
every  single  word  Mrs.  Rowse  had  said,  Father 
Peake  replied: 

"Yes,  and  of  course  you're  very  young?" 

"I'm  twenty-six,"  said  John,  feeling  not  the 
faintest  necessity  to  be  dishonest  about  it. 

"Quite  so — and  the  lady?" 

No  names  had  been  mentioned  but  John's. 

"She's  twenty-two." 

"Very  young,"  said  Father  Peake.  "Danger- 
ously young,"  he  added  and  then,  possibly  catching 
a  look  in  John's  eyes,  he  concluded:  "Attractively 
young — I've  no  doubt." 

John  felt  a  sudden  heat  in  his  blood  and  thanked 
heaven  this  was  not  the  man  to  whom  he  had  made 
his  confessions  concerning  Amber. 

To  unburden  his  soul  of  that,  he  had  gone  one 
rainy  day  into  the  depths  of  West  Kensington. 
Anyone  with  any  sense  would  call  it  Hammer- 
smith, suffering  the  loss  of  address  to  gain  the 
dignity  of  the  truth.  There  in  the  dim  light  of  the 
musty  confessional,  he  had  emptied  out  his  heart 


130      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

to  a  priest  who  had  an  Irish  brogue  as  rich  as  the 
notes  of  an  organ  and  it  had  rolled  between  his  lips 
like  a  song. 

This  confession  had  been  made  soon  after  he  had 
first  met  Jill;  indeed,  immediately  after  that  Easter 
Sunday  when  he  had  told  Amber  he  was  in  love. 

"Isn't  ut  the  way  ye  were  fond  of  the  girrl  at 
all?"  the  priest  had  asked  him. 

"Yes — of  course  I  was — very  fond." 

"Then  how  was  ut  ye  didn't  marry  her?" 

"Well,  we — we  didn't  love  each  other.  She  didn't 
love  me.  I — I  didn't  love  her.  We  were  just  very 
fond  of  each  other." 

The  priest  blew  his  nose  and  it  had  been  like  the 
sounds  of  thunder  in  the  cramped  vibrations  of  that 
confessional  box. 

"An'  what's  the  difference?"  he  had  asked. 

Such  confessions  he  heard  every  day  and  all  with 
the  plaintive  admission  of  weakness  to  overwhelm- 
ing temptation.  No  such  thing  would  ever  have 
happened,  they  said,  had  they  stopped  to  think.  And 
the  absence  of  capacity  for  thought,  or  it  might  be 
merely  the  inability  of  arrest  was  overwhelming  in 
its  preponderance.  He  polished  them  all  off  with 
such  variety  of  penance  as  they  deserved. 

There  was  human  nature  as  it  had  been  since  the 
fall  of  Adam.  He  had  learnt  something  of  it  in 
thirty  years.  The  thousands  of  years  since  there 
was  a  serpent  in  Eden  had  made  but  little  differ- 
ence. The  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil 
was  still  growing  in  the  human  heart;  still  yielding 
in  its  everlasting  seasons  the  forbidden  fruit.  Still, 


A  Confession  131 

• 

too,  it  was  forever  being  picked  and  the  cry  of 
vindication  remained  the  same.  The  temptation 
was  stronger  than  could  be  borne.  There  was  not 
one  amongst  them  who  had  the  honesty  to  admit 
that  the  desire  to  taste  had  been  so  great  that  noth- 
ing short  of  the  blight  of  God  amongst  the  branches 
could  have  snatched  the  fruit  from  their  hands. 

He  had  often  wondered  when  human  nature 
would  tire  of  the  threadbare  excuse,  as  he  was  tired 
of  hearing  it.  And  now  at  last,  here  was  a  young 
man  calmly  making  definite  distinctions  between 
natural  inclinations  and  the  sacred  impulse  of  love. 

As  has  been  said,  he  blew  his  nose,  which  he  al- 
ways did  to  gain  time  for  thought  when  he  was 
taken  by  surprise  and  then,  receiving  no  answer  to 
his  question,  he  had  asked  again: 

"What's  the  difference  between  being  fond  of  a 
woman  and  being  in  love  with  her?" 

"What's  the  difference,"  asked  John  boldly  in 
return,  "what's  the  difference  between  God  and 
Nature?" 

"Shure,  Nature's  a  law,"  said  the  priest,  "and 
God's  a  spirit,"  and  wondered  why  on  earth  he  had 
allowed  himself  to  be  decoyed  into  answering  a 
question  of  that  nature  in  the  confessional. 

"Well,  that's  the  difference  between  being  fond 
of  a  woman  and  being  in  love  with  her,"  replied 
John,  whereupon  he  received  as  heavy  a  penance 
as  he  could  well  be  given  for  his  audacity. 


Chapter  XVIII :  Showers  and  Blowers 

NO  such  confession  as  that  had  ever  been  made 
by  John  to  Father  Peake. 

Concerning  Roman  Catholics,  this  is  a 
secret  and  should  not  by  right  be  divulged.  But, 
just  heavens!  If  there  is  none  of  the  blood  of 
human  nature  to  be  found  in  the  observance  of 
even  the  strictest  dogmas  of  a  religion,  it  can  have 
but  little  hope  of  standing  the  wear  and  tear  of 
Time. 

Had  you  a  particularly  intimate  little  sin,  you 
would  not  care  to  go  and  unburden  yourself  of  it 
to  one  with  whom,  like  as  not,  you  might  be  hob- 
nobbing next  day  over  a  cup  of  tea  in  your  neigh- 
bor's drawing  room.  You  would  never  be  able  to 
hob-nob  with  any  degree  of  comfort  so  long  as  he 
was  in  the  room. 

That  is  why  London  is  such  a  first-rate  place  for 
Roman  Catholics.  There  are  so  many  hidden 
corners.  You  can  wrap  up  your  ugliest  of  sins  in 
an  unsuspicious-looking  parcel  and  leave  it  down 
some  out-of-the-way,  hole-and-corner  side  street, 
when  no  one  in  your  parish  will  be  one  wit  the 
wiser  for  your  having  committed  it. 

In  the  old  days,  when  it  was  fashionable  for  ladies 
to  wear  their  handkerchiefs  in  some  ornamental  way 

132 


Showers  and  Blowers  133 

arranged  in  the  bosom  of  their  gowns,  it  was  the 
custom  to  carry  two;  one,  so-called  the  shower  and 
the  other,  the  blower.  Where  this  latter  was  car- 
ried, I  have  no  pretensions  to  knowledge.  It  was 
not — as  you  might  say — worn. 

Now  if  you  are  a  Roman  Catholic — and  it  is  not 
for  me  to  say  the  loss  is  yours  if  you  are  not — 
you  classify  your  sins  much  as  ladies  once  regarded 
their  handkerchiefs.  Some  are  for  show.  These 
you  reveal  in  the  breast  of  your  spiritual  garments 
for  your  parish  priest,  who  knows  you  well,  to  take 
account  of.  It  may  be  you  even  sprinkle  upon  them 
some  invisible  drops  of  the  subtle  perfume  of 
Romance.  Ladies  will  know  I  speak  more  par- 
ticularly of  them.  Whatever  it  is  you  do  to  them, 
there  is  a  delicate  odor  you  leave  behind  you  in  the 
musty  air  of  that  confessional  as  you  go  out.  Your 
parish  priest  looks  into  the  darkness  after  you  have 
gone,  thinking — that  is  a  sweet  woman.  God 
knows,  perhaps  he  may  even  draw  the  slow  deep 
breath  which  goes  with  a  regret  too  subtle  to  find 
its  way  into  words.  Certain  it  is  he  realizes  there 
is  something  beautiful,  however  human,  in  your 
nature. 

Of  this  type  of  sin  are  those  delicate  confessions 
of  inclination  and  impulse  when  the  heart  has 
warmed  the  blood  before  the  reason  has  had  time 
to  take  account  of  it.  You  never  really  gratified 
those  impulses,  for  contemplation  by  no  means  is 
fulfillment.  Sometimes,  perhaps,  you  may  even  have 
played  with  them  for  a  passing  hour. 

They  are  those   inclinations,   sins  of  the  mind, 


134      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

which  really  you  believe  you  were  courageous  with, 
but  which  often,  if  you  looked  deeply  into  the  matter, 
you  would  find  were  affairs  where  opportunity  held 
aloof  and  saved  you  much  in  the  pricking  of  your 
conscience.  Actually  it  was,  that  by  the  time  the 
impulse  had  fully  come,  the  object  of  it  had  van- 
ished, swept  away  in  those  odd  streams  of  life 
which  bring  things  before  on  no  less  swiftly  than 
they  carry  them  away. 

For  example:  you  are  not  a  lady  who  has  ever 
stooped  so  far  as  to  speak  to  a  stranger  in  the 
^treet.  God  forbid!  Kensington  Gardens  anyhow 
are  not  to  be  considered  in  such  light  of  publicity 
as  the  open  street;  and  in  a  train — well,  it  is  the 
everlasting  pity  that  English  people  are  so  ob- 
stinately averse  to  whiling  away  an  hour  in  con- 
versation with  a  stranger  in  a  train.  It  is  not  to 
be  held  against  you  if  you  eschew  the  national 
characteristics  of  your  race.  You  may  have  made 
acquaintances  that  way.  Why  not?  But  in  the 
street ! 

And  yet,  perchance  there  has  passed  you  by, 
only  occasionally,  ones  with  whom  acquaintance 
would  have  been  at  least  amusing.  What  can  you 
do?  Life  would  be  a  dull  affair  without  these  im- 
pulses. Have  you  looked  over  your  shoulder  when 
he  has  gone  by?  God  knows  1  Perhaps  you  have. 
Have  you  hesitated  and  gone  into  a  shop,  because 
to  continue  walking  in  your  direction  will  not  only 
increase  the  distance  between  you,  but  is  likely  to 
give  him  quite  a  wrong  impression  of  what  is  pass- 
ing in  your  mind. 


Showers  and  Blowers  135 

Who,  however,  in  their  senses  would  classify  a 
shop  and  the  open  street  in  the  same  breath? 

Anyhow,  it  binds  you  to  nothing.  If  a  moment 
later,  he  also  enters  the  shop,  you  are  in  no  way 
pledged.  You  had  wanted  to  buy  something  that 
morning  when  you  set  out.  You  can  tell  the  girl 
so  over  the  counter  and  in  his  hearing. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  Fate  is  determined  to  pre- 
serve you  from  temptation  and  he  does  not  enter 
the  shop — well,  of  course,  some  men  are  fools. 

It  is  little  sins  like  this  you  wear  for  your  parish 
priest.  Cunningly  you  tuck  them  into  the  breast  of 
your  spiritual  garment,  just  where  they  conceal  the 
sweet  attractions  of  human  frailty.  Little  sins  like 
these  they  are  which  leave  the  delicate  perfume  of 
Romance  in  that  dark  and  musty  confessional  when, 
with  your  adequate  penance,  you  set  out  absolved 
of  all  pricks  of  conscience  into  the  world  of  little 
unavoidable  adventures  once  again. 

I  am  not  suggesting  that  this  is  a  sin  peculiar 
to  any  lady.  Heaven  bears  me  witness  when  I  swear 
that  no  lady  I  have  ever  known  has  been  so  tempted; 
and,  without  compunction,  I  subpoena  Heaven  again 
to  give  evidence,  that  no  lady  I  have  ever  known 
has  so  succumbed.  It  is  not  a  lady-like  thing  to 
do  and  to  my  dying  day  I  will  carry  this  illusion 
close  against  my  heart,  that  all  women  are  ladies. 

It  is  only  the  men  who  retrace  their  steps,  it  is 
only  the  men  who  are  not  gentlemen. 

Now  of  the  sins  you  confess  in  the  hole-and- 
corner  chapel,  far  away  in  a  remote  district  of 
London,  it  is  hard  to  know  what  can  be  said  of 


136      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

them.  There  is  but  little  of  the  perfume  of 
Romance  in  their  commission.  Much  more  are  they 
in  common  use.  Still  making  use  of  that  simile  of 
the  handkerchief,  of  some  people  it  might  even  be 
declared  that,  in  the  matter  of  these  sins,  they  suf- 
fered often  from  a  cold  in  the  head. 

Heaven  knows  they  are  hard  enough  to  admit, 
even  to  a  man  whose  voice  you  may  never  hear 
again  for  the  rest  of  your  mortal  life.  For  there 
are  many  holes  and  many  corners  and  you  do  not 
of  necessity  go  to  the  same  place  twice. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  no  avoiding  their  confes- 
sion. They  weigh  on  the  soul  like  clouds  on  the 
mountain  peaks.  The  sky  is  not  clear  in  your  heart 
till  they  are  told.  Wherefore,  in  some  out-of-the- 
way  spots  in  London,  there  are  priests  who  know — 
but,  thank  heavens,  would  never  recognize  you — 
for  a  shameful  woman  who,  short  of  murder,  would 
stop  at  nothing. 

Perhaps  the  less  that  is  said  of  these  sins,  the 
better.  They  arise  out  of  the  nature  of  your 
origin,  wherefore  the  only  consolation  you  have  is 
that  your  ancestors  into  the  remotest  of  the  ages  are 
more  to  blame  than  you.  Like  the  handkerchiefs 
in  the  days  when  there  were  no  reticule  bags,  they 
are  carried;  but  certainly  they  are  not  worn.  There 
is  not  a  woman  would  let  you  know  she  had  such 
a  thing  about  her. 

This  is  a  secret  that  should  never  by  rights  have 
been  divulged. 

Now,  when  you  see  a  lady  wrapped  in  furs,  or 
in  any  manner  exquisitely  dressed,  who  steps  out  of 


Showers  and  Blowers  137 

her  carriage  and  hurries  into  that  chapel  in  the 
dingy  side  street,  you  will  know  her  for  one  who 
is  not  incapable  of  mortal  sin.  Seeing,  moreover, 
that  you  carry  about  with  you,  no  less,  all  those 
human  qualities  which  the  more  appreciate  scandal 
the  worse  it  is,  you  are  bound  to  exaggerate  her 
guilt.  She  may  have  done  no  more  than  speak  the 
truth  about  her  neighbor;  but  you  will  see  her  in 
your  imagination  breaking  the  whole  ten  command- 
ments like  a  packet  of  slate  pencils. 

Undoubtedly  the  secret  should  never  have  been 
betrayed.  It  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  our 
history  and  therefore  there  is  no  excuse  for  it  but 
this:  it  was  introduced  into  this  wandering  tale  to 
show  why  John  had  confessed  himself  of  the  story 
of  Amber  to  a  priest  in  West  Kensington,  when 
his  parish  was  that  of  Lincoln's  Inn. 

I  almost  wish  I  had  never  explained  the  matter 
at  all.  It  is  really  no  business  of  mine  and  perhaps 
it  were  as  well  for  any  who  have  been  at  some 
pains  to  read  this  chapter  that  they  should  be  at 
still  further  pains  to  put  it  right  out  of  their  heads. 


Chapter  XIX :  An  Engagement  to  Eat  a 
Hat 

FATHER    PEAKE    had    his    point    of   view 
which  he  wished  it  to  be  understood  was 
not  his  alone,  but  that  of  all  the  churches 
in  Christendom.     It  was  when  he  had  learnt  all 
about  John's  circumstances  and  had  reduced  that 
three  pounds  ten  a  week  to  its  component  parts  of 
likely  and  unlikely  possibility,  that  he  voiced  it  and 
believed  he  was  talking  God's  truth,  accompanied 
by  the  soundest  of  common  sense. 

There  is  not  the  faintest  doubt  that  his  observa- 
tions were  compound  of  common  sense,  but  whether 
the  deductions  he  drew  from  them  were  the  truth 
of  God,  it  would  seem  to  need  the  wisdom  of  God 
to  say. 

"If  you  take  my  advice,  Mr.  Grey,"  he  said, 
"you  won't  think  of  marriage  yet  awhile." 

John  asked  why.  It  was  like  falling  through  a 
hole  in  the  ice  into  black  water,  when  but  a  moment 
before  he  had  been  traveling  on  the  surface  with 
the  speed  of  flight  through  the  sharp,  exhilarating 
air,  warm  with  a  winter's  sun.  The  sudden  arrest 
of  all  his  hopes  was  as  absolute,  as  catastrophic  as 
this. 

138 


An  Engagement  to  Eat  a  Hat      139 

"Why?"  he  said.  "But  why?"  and  could  say  no 
more. 

Father  Peake  spread  out  his  hands.  That  it  was 
not  plain  as  the  daylight  convinced  him  how  young 
this  young  man  must  be. 

"A  doubtful  three  pounds,  ten  shillings  a  week, 
may  be  enough  for  you,"  he  explained.  "It  is 
scarcely  enough  for  yourself  and  a  lady  who  is  ac- 
customed to  the  luxuries  of  a  comfortable  home.  It 
is  certainly  not  enough  with  which  to  bring  up 
children.  If  you  belonged  to  the  working  classes — 
very  good — very  well.  But  you — you  have  ideas  of 
comfort."  His  eyes  fell  on  the  frayed  edges  of 
John's  trousers.  "To  have  ideas  argues  the  am- 
bition sooner  or  later  to  materialize  them.  She  has 
actual  experience.  In  a  year's  time  you  would  both 
find  life  intolerable.  It  is  jeopardizing  the  sanctity 
of  married  life.  You  are  risking  the  happiness  of 
both  your  future  and  hers." 

These  were  his  observations.  They  were  full 
enough  of  common  sense  to  be  a  vulgar  helping. 
So  vulgar  indeed  that  from  that  moment  John  was 
surfeited. 

"But  I'm  not  marrying  to  have  children,"  he  ex- 
claimed. "I  don't  want  any  children  yet.  I  want 
her." 

If  the  matter  had  to  be  dealt  with  over  a  counter, 
then  he  presumed  he  had  a  right  to  make  some 
selection  in  his  purchase.  It  was  not  as  if  he  had 
broken  a  pane  of  glass  in  the  shop  window  and 
must  take  what  came  first  to  his  hand  without  time 
to  pick  or  choose.  This  was  his  choice.  He  said  it 


140      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

as  simply  as  he  would  have  done  to  a  salesman  who 
was  trying  to  impose  upon  him  a  different  class  of 
article  from  that  for  which  he  had  asked. 

Father  Peake  reached  out  his  hand  for  his  biretta. 

"I  don't  think,  Mr.  Grey,"  said  he,  "that  you 
conceive  the  first  simple  conception  of  the  Sacra- 
ment of  Matrimony." 

John  assured  him  that  he  believed  he  did. 

"It's  just  a  sin  if  you  don't  marry,"  he  replied 
with  absolute  simplicity,  "and  it's  all  right  if  you 
do.  I  don't  mean  that  that's  the  Legal,  but  the 
Sacramental  point  of  view." 

Father  Peake  laid  down  his  biretta  on  the  table. 
Evidently  he  had  something  to  teach  this  young 
man. 

"A  sacrament,"  he  replied,  "is  a  blessing.  You 
seem  to  be  confounding  it  with  a  license.  Marriage 
is  blessed  by  the  Church  for  the  procreation  of 
children.  That  first — that  first  of  all.  Whatever 
pleasure  there  may  be  for  those  who  participate  in 
it,  is  the  gift,  the  generous  gift  of  God." 

When  John  had  been  brought  up  as  a  little  boy 
in  England,  before  his  parents  went  to  Venice,  they 
had  lived  for  a  great  part  of  every  summer  in  a 
town  on  the  South  coast.  A  strict,  stubborn  and 
unimaginative  spinster  with  flat  feet  had  combined 
the  services  of  nurse  and  governess  to  him  between 
the  tender  ages  of  seven  and  nine.  Every  day  she 
took  him  for  a  long  walk.  Invariably  she  chose 
the  Downs.  In  the  scorching  sun  they  would  walk, 
what  seemed  miles  to  him,  across  those  wide,  arid 
stretches  of  the  unsheltered  hills. 


An  Engagement  to  Eat  a  Hat      141 

At  last  they  would  turn  towards  home,  when  she 
would  say  in  a  voice  that  was  like  a  hot  wind  blow- 
ing over  a  desert  of  sand: 

"Master  John,  you  can  eat  this  cracknell  biscuit 
and  then  we'll  go  home.  You  won't  get  anything 
till  lunch  time." 

There  and  then,  with  an  unslakable  thirst,  he 
would  eat  his  cracknell  biscuit. 

A  swift  remembrance  of  this  oft-repeated  episode 
flung  itself  across  John's  mind  at  that  moment. 
The  whole  incident,  so  far  as  it  had  gone,  had  been 
much  like  one  of  those  parching  walks  across  the 
South  Downs.  In  all  his  remarks  and  his  concep- 
tion of  God,  it  seemed  to  John,  Father  Peake  had 
been  as  characteristically  British  as  that  flat-footed 
spinster.  And  now  this  commercial  point  of  view, 
summed  up  in  those  materialistic  phrases — the  pro- 
creation of  children  and  the  generous  gift  of  God — 
had  all  the  taste  of  an  arid  cracknell  biscuit  in  his 
mouth. 

"Well,  I  can't  afford  to  have  children,"  said  he. 
"Not  yet  anyhow.  I  shall  be  better  off  one  day, 
when  my  books  begin  to  sell.  I  don't  say  that  I 
don't  want  children.  I  do.  I  should  be  miserable 
if  I  never  had  a  child.  So  would  she.  I'm  sure 
she  would.  But  I  don't  want  any  for  the  first  year 
or  two,  unless  I  made  a  sudden  success  and  she — 
she  was  unhappy  without  one.  But  you  seem  to 
think  I've  no  idea  of  having  one." 

"I  take  it,"  the  priest  interrupted,  and  when  in 
argument  a  man  takes  anything,  there  is  no  getting 
it  back  again,  "I  take  it  that  scarcely  any  man  is 


142      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

so  wanting  in  self-respect  or  a  sense  of  his  responsi- 
bilities as  that.  No,  Mr.  Grey,  this  talk  is  not 
new  to  me.  I  have  heard  it  often  before  and  the 
more  I  hear  it,  the  more  I  am  convinced  of  the 
selfish  ignorance  which,  strange  to  say,  education 
has  brought  into  the  world.  I  make  no  accusation 
of  willfulness  when  I  suggest  that  your  attitude  is 
one  of  selfish  ignorance.  You  regard  marriage 
merely  as  an  opportunity." 

"Well,  isn't  that  better?"  cried  John.  "Isn't  that 
better  than  finding  it  a  commercial  undertaking?  I 
don't  want  to  enter  into  partnership  in  a  trade  for 
bringing  children  into  the  world.  I  want  to  make 
my  children  out  of  love,  not  out  of  calculation.  I'm 
in  love!  Don't  you  understand  what  that  means? 
I  want  to  be  always  with  the  woman  I'm  in  love 
with — always — night  and  day.  She's  part  of  me. 
I'm  incomplete  without  her.  I  don't  feel  selfish 
about  it.  I  just  feel  selfless  without  her.  That's 
all.  I  know  now  that,  until  I  met  her,  I  was,  some- 
where inside  me,  an  unfinished  being.  I  didn't 
completely  exist.  I  was  like  something  half-awake. 
Am  I  to  be  condemned  to  a  state  of  half-expression 
because  I  happen  to  be  making  no  more  than  three 
pounds  ten  a  week?  Is  she  to  spin  out  the  best 
years  of  a  woman's  life,  waiting  until  I  make  a 
yearly  income  approved  of  by  standards  of  the 
Church  and  if  I  fail,  then  either  to  waste  her  life 
or  marry  a  man  who  can  lay  no  claim  to  hold  her 
heart?  Is  love  nothing  to  the  God  we're  told  is 
love  itself?" 

"All  this  I've  heard  before,"  said  Father  Peake. 


An  Engagement  to  Eat  a  Hat      143 

"Well,  and  what  do  you  say  to  it?" 

"Oh,  it's  an  old  argument,  as  old  as  free  educa- 
tion, cheap  printing  and  the  modern  pernicious  form 
of  literature." 

"And  what's  the  matter  with  the  literature  of 
to-day?"  asked  John. 

"Well,  in  the  popular  form  in  which  it  is  given 
broad-cast  to  the  public,  it  spreads  the  new-fangled 
ideas  about  love  and  marriage.  It  popularizes 
divorce  by  treating  it  with  levity.  It  is  largely 
responsible  for  these  very  ideas  about  the  Sacrament 
of  Marriage  which  you  have  just  been  voicing  your- 
self." 

"Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you,"  said  John,  "that 
what  the  modern  literature  may  do  is  to  revive  the 
sound  of  the  voice  of  God  which  has  grown  dumb 
in  the  churches?" 

"Most  emphatically  I  would  deny  that!"  ex- 
claimed Father  Peake.  "The  voice  of  God  in  all 
the  ages  has  never  encouraged  licentiousness.  All 
these  sensations  you  talk  about — this  desire  to  be 
with  a  woman  day  and  night — all  these  the  Church 
urges  you  to  keep  under  control.  They  are  perhaps 
the  natural  inclinations  of  sex,  but  a  man  must  not 
allow  them  to  master  him  until  he  can  appreciate 
and  is  prepared  to  accept  the  full  significance  of 
marriage.  Every  man  cries  out  that  he  is  tempted 
— but  no  man,  by  the  grace  and  mercy  of  God,  is 
tempted  more  than  he  can  bear." 

John  seized  his  hat  and  the  next  second  threw 
it  down  again. 

"Temptation  1"  he  shouted.     "I'm  not  tempted! 


144      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

I  mean  to  be  with  her!  I  intend  to  be  with  her! 
I'm  not  haggling  about  it  with  God  on  one  side  and 
the  Devil  on  the  other,  wrangling  for  my  soul.  I'm 
not  pulled  this  way  about  it  and  then  that.  I've 
not  come  here  to  whine  to  you  that  I'm  tempted. 
I  mean  to  be  with  her,  now  and  always." 

He  walked  across  the  room  and  back  again  and, 
talking  on  the  flood  of  his  emotions  now,  he  was 
bringing  up  out  of  the  well  of  his  mind  truths  no 
reason  could  have  stirred  in  him. 

"Do  you  think,"  he  went  on  wildly,  "that  a  man 
when  he's  in  love,  marries  for  the  righteous  op- 
portunity it  affords?  If  there  were  a  million  ob- 
stacles to  the  advantages  of  marriage,  you  couldn't 
keep  a  man  and  a  woman  apart  once  they  were 
absolutely  in  love.  We  aren't  machines.  Our  souls 
aren't  turned  out  on  a  lathe  to  a  common  pattern. 
Every  man  and  every  woman  are  beings  to  them- 
selves, however  much  they  must  subscribe  to  a 
universal  plan.  You  can't  tell  us  to  resist  the  in- 
clinations of  Nature  and  expect  us  to  be  slaves  to 
its  functions  at  the  same  time.  There's  no  logic 
in  it.  A  plan  like  that  isn't  universal.  You 
wouldn't  get  a  fool  to  subscribe  to  that." 

"There's  only  one  universal  plan,"  said  Father 
Peake,  and  wondered  why  he  was  wasting  his  time 
with  this  young  man,  "and  that  is  the  law  of  God 
ordained  for  the  salvation  of  the  soul.  The  body 
is  mere  dust  and  ashes." 

"That's  a  very  comprehensive'  thing  to  say,"  re- 
plied John,  "but  do  you  think  you  know  the  differ- 
ence between  a  body  and  a  soul?  When  you  think 


An  Engagement  to  Eat  a  Hat      145 

you're  talking  of  one,  you're  in  reality  talking  of 
the  other.  I'm  not  asking  for  the  permission  of 
the  Church  to  take  something  that's  bad  for  my 
soul.  I'm  asking  for  something  that's  good  for  me 
— that's  a  part  of  me — that  I  don't  properly  exist 
without.  You  say  that  this  isn't  your  attitude  alone, 
but  that  of  every  church  in  Christendom — well, 
then,  the  Church  of  Christ  doesn't  know  what  love 
is.  It's  lost  it  in  a  midst  of  dogma  and  losing  it, 
has  lost  its  only  touch  with  God.  Love's  not  a  sin 
that  can  be  overlooked  with  a  Sacrament;  that  can 
be  made  tolerable  to  God  by  a  device  of  the  Church. 
It's  not  a  vice  that  can  be  condoned  with  in  return 
for  an  undertaking  to  provide  new  members  for 
that  Church  which  grants  its  qualified  consent.  It's 
not  a  disease  to  poultice  and  heal  with  a  few 
prayers.  It's  something  you  can  go  down  on  your 
knees  and  thank  God  for  it.  You  can't  bargain 
with  it.  You  can't  turn  it  to  account.  It  is  the 
highest  account  a  man  can  give  of  himself  to  be 
able  to  say  he  is — in  love.  Is  that  why  you  refused 
to  marry  Mrs.  Rowse's  daughter?" 

"Mrs.  Rowse?  Mrs.  Rowse?  Oh,  yes,  Mrs. 
Rowse!"  Father  Peake  was  glad  of  any  concrete 
fact  in  the  whirlwind  of  these  abstractions.  "I 
refused  to  marry  her  daughter,  Mr.  Grey,  because 
I  was  not  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  young  man. 
If  I  remember  he  was  an  Australian  and  they  would 
not  consent  to  wait  even  a  few  months  to  prove  his 
good  faith." 

"That's  it,"  said  John.     "Well,  they  were  mar- 


146     World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

ried  at  a  Registry  Office  and  she  had  a  child  six 
months  after." 

Father  Peake  raised  his  eyes. 

"I  was  afraid  it  might  be  something  like  that," 
said  he. 

John  seized  his  hat  and  this  time  kept  it  in  his 
hand  as  he  strode  to  the  door. 

"Afraid!"  he  exclaimed.  "Afraid?  But  hadn't 
they  done  the  very  thing  you  demand  of  them  and 
without  wasting  any  time  about  it?  Afraid!  Well 
— it  beats  me!" 

And  he  was  gone. 

He  went  straight  from  the  Presbytery  into  the 
chapel  and  put  a  penny  in  the  box  of  candles  before 
the  altar  of  St.  Joseph.  When  he  had  lit  the  candle 
and  placed  it  in  the  sconce,  he  knelt  down  on  the 
stone  steps. 

"I  met  her  here — this  very  spot,"  he  said,  just 
as  though  he  were  talking  to  a  man  at  the  corner 
of  the  street.  "And  if  there's  anything  beastly  in 
the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  world,  I'll  eat  my 
hat." 

That  is  a  prayer;  a  prayer  in  such  a  humor  as 
goes  out  of  the  heart  like  a  bullet  out  of  a  gun. 
For  whatever  service  it  may  have  been  to  St.  Joseph 
that  John  should  his  eat  his  hat — unless  it  increased 
the  necessity  for  him  to  get  a  new  one — it  would  be 
hard  to  say.  However,  it  was  at  least  a  definite 
engagement  and  acted  like  a  charge  of  powder  to 
the  velocity  of  his  prayer. 


Chapter  XX :  A  Prelude  to  a  Family 

ONE  thing  was  obvious  to  the  most  inconse- 
quent intelligence  after  that  interview  with 
Father  Peake.  John  would  have  to  tell 
Jill  all  about  it.  If  that  were  the  mind  of  the 
Church  on  the  matter,  they  would  have  to  be  mar- 
ried in  a  Registry  Office  as  Lizzie  Rowse  had  been, 
and  marriage  in  a  Registry  Office  cannct  be  ex- 
plained in  a  casual,  offhand  sort  of  way. 

You  cannot,  for  example,  say  to  a  woman:  "Come 
on,  let's  get  married  in  the  Registry  Office,  it's 
nearer."  She  will  not  listen  to  that  sort  of  talk. 
There  comes  at  once  a  look  into  the  corner  of  her 
eye.  Doubtless  it  is  with  her  that  marriage  is  so 
eventful  a  business  as  to  require  celebration  in  a 
place  where  all  the  world  can  well  observe  it.  The 
faintest  suggestion  of  anything  hole-and-corner 
about  it  and  she  becomes  as  wary  as  a  rabbit  on  a 
windy  day. 

Notwithstanding  all  her  love  for  him,  John  was 
suspicious  of  the  need  for  care  with  Jill.  For  in 
those  days  after  their  return  from  Venice,  it  was 
seldom  they  had  opportunity  to  meet.  She  had  told 
him  so  much  that  day  in  the  Zoo  as  gave  him  at 
least  to  understand  that  all  their  meetings  must  be 
clandestine.  For  the  greater  part  of  her  time, 

147 


148      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

therefore,  she  was  close  to  an  influence  he  suspected 
had  only  contempt  for  the  things  of  his  world. 
Never  would  he  feel  absolutely  safe  until  she  was 
his,  all  the  hours  of  the  day  and  night.  There  were 
moments  when,  with  a  chill  sensation  in  the  blood, 
he  wondered  would  she  be  safe  from  that  influence 
even  then. 

And  now  this  Father  Peake  had  flung  an  obstacle 
in  their  way.  They  would  have  to  be  married  in  a 
Registry  Office.  He  must  tell  her  and  he  won- 
dered how  she  would  take  it.  What  was  more,  in 
his  conscience,  he  knew  he  must  tell  her  why. 

He  kicked  things  that  morning  as  he  walked 
home.  The  grass  had  disappeared  between  the 
paving  stone  in  Fetter  Lane.  Even  the  smell  of  the 
earth  from  the  potatoes  in  Mrs.  Meakin's  shop  had 
not  that  same  savor  of  cleanliness.  He  saw  Mrs. 
Meakin  herself,  polishing  her  apples  with  the 
corner  of  her  apron  and  when,  looking  up  at  him, 
she  winked,  saying:  "They  think  they  taste  better 
with  a  shine  on  'em,"  he  railed  in  his  soul  against 
that  false  service  at  the  altar  of  appearances. 

Circumstance,  it  seemed  just  then,  was  pressing 
about  him,  conscripting  him  for  the  ranks  of  that 
vast  army  of  materialists.  There  was,  he  felt,  a 
mighty  organization  at  work  in  constant  motion, 
forcing  one  after  another  to  discard  the  garments 
of  their  ideals  and  don  the  uniform,  take  up  the 
weapons  of  the  conquering  forces  of  materialism  and 
expediency. 

Recruiting  sergeants  were  conspicuous  at  every 
street  corner.  They  came,  sometime  with  the  gay 


'A  Prelude  to  a  Family          149 

rosettes  of  colored  ribbons  in  their  caps,  telling  you 
what  a  jolly  life,  that  life  of  expediency  could  be. 
Or  they  came,  like  the  devil  at  your  back,  turning 
and  twisting  a  tempting  shilling  in  their  fingers. 
Or  yet  again  they  came  with  threats  of  the  invading 
foe,  the  foe  of  want  and  all  life's  so-called  discom- 
forts. 

Foremost  amongst  them  all  in  those  moments, 
appeared  the  face  of  Father  Peake,  and  behind  him 
a  row  of  Anglican  Churchmen,  long-faced  Presby- 
terians and  seedy  Dissenters.  But  they  had  no 
power  of  persuasion  with  him  then. 

"You  think  it  hypocrisy  now,"  they  told  him,  "to 
conform  to  the  conventions — but  all  life  you'll  find, 
as  you  get  older,  is  a  compromise.  The  whole  basis 
of  society  demands  a  certain  amount  of  the  giving 
up  of  ideals  for  the  exchange  of  its  benefits  and 
necessities.  This  is  a  matter-of-fact  world.  The 
only  definite  realities  about  it,  so  far  as  you're  con- 
cerned, are  the  conditions  it  imposes  upon  those  who 
want  to  get  the  best  out  of  it.  Obviously  it  is  folly 
not  to  get  the  best  out  of  it  while  you  can.  You're 
not  long  in  it.  Join  the  ranks,  submit  yourself  to 
the  discipline  of  facts  and  you'll  find  when  you've 
swallowed  your  pride,  it's  not  such  a  bad  place  to 
live  in  after  all." 

"Facts!"  shouted  John  as  he  opened  his  door 
and  then,  taking  off  his  hat,  he  flung  it  to  the  other 
end  of  the  room. 

It  struck  the  blue  and  white  milk  jug  he  had 
bought  at  Payne  and  Welcome's  the  day  he  had 
entertained  Jill  and  Mr.  Chesterton  to  tea.  It  fell 


150      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

with  a  fatal,  ominous  sound  to  the  floor.  The  next 
moment  he  had  forgotten  all  about  the  Churches 
and  their  materialism  while  he  picked  up  the  pieces 
and,  with  the  sound  of  voices  laughing  at  his  elbow, 
tenderly  fitted  them  together. 

But  Jill  had  to  be  told  the  truth.  He  felt  that 
in  his  bones.  It  would  be  like  stealing  something 
from  her  if  he  did  not  tell  her  the  truth.  She 
must  hear  the  advice  Father  Peake  had  given  him, 
no  less  than  the  reasons  of  his  objection  to  marry- 
ing them.  Then  she  must  judge  for  herself.  And 
if,  as  he  feared  for  some  reason  or  other  which 
he  could  not  explain,  she  felt  that  marriage  in  this 
undignified  secrecy  was  impossible,  then,  he  had 
loved  and  could  still  love,  while  there  was  always 
his  work  to  be  done,  which  no  one  in  the  world 
could  prevent  her  from  reading  once  it  was  in  the 
publicity  of  print. 

They  met  again;  this  time  in  the  gardens  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  that  are  like  an  oasis  of  silence 
in  the  bewildering  desert  of  London  noise. 

The  gardens  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  have  an 
atmosphere  about  them  that  is  all  their  own.  That 
is  true  of  every  one  of  the  open  spaces  in  the  heart 
of  London,  where  Nature  is  given  her  plots  of 
ground  in  which  to  plant  a  tree  or  weave  a  carpet 
of  grass.  Kensington  Gardens,  Charing  Cross 
Gardens,  the  gardens  in  the  fields  of  Lincoln's  Inn 
and  the  many  others  too  numerous  to  name,  they  all 
strike  their  note  when,  if  you  do  but  go  there  in 
the  right  spirit,  you  will  hear  it  playing  in  the  fancy 
of  your  mind. 


A  Prelude  to  a  Family  151 

If  in  Kensington  Gardens  you  will  find  Romance, 
then  in  the  fields  of  Lincoln's  Inn  is  all  that  pro- 
found essence  of  logical  common  sense.  In  the 
gardens  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  you  can  spread  out 
the  portions  of  your  life,  like  documents  on  a 
leather-topped  table.  You  can  tie  them  up  with 
the  red  tape — of  which  there  are  miles  and  miles 
in  all  the  houses  that  stand  around  the  square — 
and,  before  you  go,  deposit  them  in  the  deed  box 
of  unapproachable  resolution. 

Who  has  the  key  of  that  box  is  a  matter  upon 
which  largely  depends  the  maintenance  of  the  order 
in  which  you  have  arranged  them.  If  she  has  it, 
you  may  be  sure  she  will  unlock  it  a  thousand  times, 
just  to  see  how  tidily  those  documents  have  been 
put  away.  And  every  time  she  shuts  it  up  again, 
they  will  be  a  little  less  in  order  than  they  were 
before. 

If,  however,  you  have  the  key  yourself  and,  as 
must  be  supposed,  are  one  of  those  strong-minded 
individuals  who,  short  of  the  compulsion  of  the  law, 
will  keep  an  iron  will  when  once  you  have  made  up 
your  mind,  then  you  never  look  inside  the  box  again. 
One  day,  however,  when  the  orderliness  of  your  life 
has  become  past  endurance,  you  take  the  whole  bag 
of  tricks,  lock,  stock  and  barrel  and  fling  it  out  of 
the  window,  exclaiming,  as  you  do  so: 

"Well — thank  God,  I  kept  my  word — I  never 
looked  inside — I  never  disarranged  the  order  of  the 
blooming  things  once." 

So  you  stand  before  your  conscience,  strong- 
minded  to  the  last. 


152      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It  is  not  only  the  houses  of  the  Law,  standing 
around  that  silent  square,  which  give  tone  to  this 
atmosphere  of  systematic  rectitude;  it  is,  as  well, 
the  people  you  see  there  in  the  gardens,  seated  on 
the  benches,  or  pacing  its  asphalt  paths.  In  that 
midst  of  the  rush  of  London,  down  Kingsway  on 
one  side  and  Chancery  Lane  on  the  other,  it  is  the 
very  spirit  of  quietness,  the  very  essence  of  repose. 

Only  a  stray  lawyer's  clerk,  or  a  little  typist  late 
to  her  work  are  to  be  seen  hurrying  there.  Only 
these  break  the  silence  under  the  plane  trees.  And 
you  can  avoid  her  if  you  like,  for  you  can  always 
tell  the  hour  she  will  appear.  She  is  as  punctual 
in  her  lateness  as  the  Law  Court's  Clock. 

Between  the  long  whiles  of  her  passing,  you  may 
see  a  well-to-do  barrister,  sneaking  an  appetite  for 
his  lunch  on  the  pretext  that  he  has  a  heavy  case 
to  deal  with  and  likes  to  stretch  his  legs  to  think. 
There  is  always  the  lawyer's  old  clerk,  sitting  on 
one  of  the  benches,  gazing  through  the  plane  trees 
towards  that  office  from  which  he  is  drawing  his 
pension. 

He  was  the  mainstay  of  his  firm  was  that  old 
clerk.  He  will  tell  you,  at  the  first  formal  invita- 
tions to  his  confidence,  that  he  knew  more  law  than 
all  the  four  partners  put  together.  He  was  their 
right-hand  man.  They  called  him  in  for  consulta- 
tion whenever  they  were  in  any  difficulty.  Beckon- 
ing to  you  with  his  finger  to  come  nearer,  he  will 
inform  you  in  an  undertone  they  were  always  in 
difficulty.  They  asked  him  his  opinion  in  a  casual 


A  Prelude  to  a  Family  153 

sort  of  voice,  but  when  he  had  given  it  to  them, 
they  always  said: 

"That's  what  we  thought.  That's  just  what  we 
thought.  We're  glad  you  confirm  our  opinion." 

It  was  like  sleight  of  hand. 

He  sits  there  the  whole  of  a  warm  morning,  think- 
ing of  the  excellent  opinions  he  gave  and  gazing 
across  to  those  windows,  wondering  what  the  devil 
the  four  partners  are  doing  without  him. 

Kensington  Gardens,  they  say,  belongs  to  Sir  J. 
M.  Barrie.  If  they  have  misinformed  you  on  this 
matter,  then  it  is  because  they  have  not  heard  that 
they  belong  to  Peter  Pan. 

All  these  gardens  belong  to  someone.  For  some 
reason  or  other,  notwithstanding  the  thunder  of  the 
trains  over  Hungerford  Bridge  and  the  rush  of 
the  trams  along  the  Embankment — sounds  foreign 
enough  surely  to  his  ears — Charing  Cross  Gardens 
belong  to  Bobbie  Burns.  He  has  the  air  of  pro- 
prietorship in  his  eye.  Why  he  presides  over  that 
bandstand  with  its  County  Council  music,  I  have 
never  been  able  to  discover.  I  only  know  he  does 
preside. 

And  these  gardens  of  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  they 
belong  without  question  to  Margaret.  I  never  feel 
the  inclination  to  give  her  her  surname,  I  seem  to 
know  her  so  well.  Yet  there  it  is,  in  graven  letters, 
for  all  they — like  the  little  typewriter — that  run 
may  read.  "Margaret  Macdonald,  who  gave  up  her 
life  to  the  service  of  helping  others,"  and  there  she 
kneels,  with  her  arms  about  all  the  others  in  the 
world.  I  am  not  going  to  explain  what  I  mean  by 


154     World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

others.  If  you  don't  know;  if  you  have  never  seen 
Margaret,  then  you  must  go  to  the  Gardens  of 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  and  find  out  for  yourself. 

To  this  rendezvous,  early  in  May,  came  John, 
wearing  the  hat  he  had  not  seen  fit  to  eat  as  yet. 
There  came  Jill  to  meet  him,  having  gone  ostensibly 
into  Kensington  Gardens  and  then  slipped  out, 
creeping  into  the  first  'bus  that  was  making  its  way 
towards  Holborn. 

When  he  saw  her  coming  towards  him  down  the 
asphalt  path,  he  realized  of  a  sudden  the  full  awk- 
wardness of  the  situation  with  which  he  was  faced. 
He  had  to  talk  about  babies.  Well — that  is  easy 
enough  when  they  are  someone  else's.  But  when 
they  are  your  own,  moreover  ones  you  have  not  yet 
got,  you  need  the  callous,  man-of-the-world  air 
about  you  to  carry  the  business  through  with  any 
degree  of  comfort. 

Now  if  there  were  ever  a  man  in  the  world,  less 
of  the  world  than  another,  it  was  John  Grey.  He 
had  described  his  whole  family  as  a  household  of 
children,  and  at  twenty-six,  the  years  had  fallen  on 
his  mind  with  no  greater  result  than  water  on  a 
duck's  back.  To  talk  to  her  of  babies  then,  when 
his  own  ideas  of  them  would  probably  have  thrown 
an  obstetric  physician  into  a  fit,  was  disconcerting, 
to  say  the  least  of  it. 

For  notwithstanding  Amber,  and  the  intimacy 
with  which  they  had  lived  together,  he  had  retained 
about  all  women,  herself  included,  a  kind  of  knight- 
errant's  belief  that  they  were  like  flowers  for  a 
man  to  pick,  if  he  could  but  win  his  way  into  the 


A  Prelude  to  a  Family          155 

garden  where  they  grew.  Not  only  did  he  retain 
a  belief  that  women  were  like  that,  but  that  as  such 
in  their  hearts  they  wished  to  be  treated. 

Knowing  there  were  women  who  confessed  to 
the  thrill  of  violence;  who  asked  that  the  man  who 
rode  into  their  lives  should  be  booted  and  spurred, 
making  a  rape  of  love  and  carrying  them  off, 
wrenched  in  passion  from  their  quietude;  knowing 
there  were  such  women,  he  still  kept  his  belief  they 
did  not  make  confession  from  their  hearts.  They 
spoke  out  of  a  quality  of  reason  and  intelligence  men 
had  encouraged  in  them.  They  affected  a  Pagan- 
ism of  the  brain,  which  was  no  more  than  the 
sensualism  they  had  learnt  from  their  men-folk. 
John  felt  it  to  be  affectation  and  no  more. 

So  it  was  in  a  more  every-day  sense,  he  declared 
all  women  were  ladies,  with  a  reservation  concern- 
ing those  who  swore  or  spat  on  the  ground.  When- 
ever Mrs.  Rowse  or  Mrs.  Meakin  met  him  in  the 
street  and  bobbed,  so  that  they  hid  the  hem  of  their 
red  flannel  petticoats,  he  took  off  his  hat. 

In  a  work-a-day  world — which  are  the  first  words 
at  the  beginning  of  this  history  and  cannot  be  in- 
sisted upon  too  often  lest  it  should  be  thought  one 
had  forgotten  that  it  was — in  a  work-a-day  world, 
there  are  men  who  think  of  women  like  this.  It  is 
to  be  admitted  they  most  times  keep  their  thoughts 
to  themselves,  for  no  man  likes  to  be  called  a  fool 
and  in  public  will  laugh  at  the  woman  who  lets  her 
hair  fall  down  in  pursuit  of  her  intentions.  There 
is  no  laughter  about  him  when  she  lets  it  fall  down 
for  him  alone. 


156      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

But  whether  it  were  folly,  or  whether  it  were 
not,  this  was  the  regard  in  which  John  held  Jill, 
and  if  any  man  likes  to  go  back  to  his  first  love 
affair  when  the  sound  of  footsteps  beat  up  the  pulses 
in  his  heart  to  the  noise  of  hammers  in  a  forge,  he 
will  find  he  thought  much  the  same. 

It  was  no  easy  matter  therefore,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, to  talk  to  her  of  babies.  Every  step  of  her 
approach  down  that  asphalt  path  brought  him 
nearer  to  the  consciousness  of  confusion.  Directly 
he  saw  her,  he  came  at  once  electrically  to  his  feet 
and  by  the  time  they  met,  it  might  have  been  one 
of  those  odd  adventures  in  the  street,  when  the 
desire  to  talk,  let  alone  the  necessity  of  it,  is  so  great 
that  it  overcomes  all  power  of  speech.  Whatever 
it  was,  the  whole  place  became  a  perambulation  of 
babies.  He  fell  over  them  as  he  murmured  his 
words  of  greeting. 

At  this  rendezvous  he  was  to  tell  her  what  ar- 
rangements he  had  made  for  their  secret  marriage. 
As  soon  as  she  knew  this  and  that  it  could  be  an 
accomplished  fact,  she  was  to  announce  once  more 
at  home  her  intention  of  marrying  John,  definitely 
breaking  off  her  engagement  with  Mr.  Skipwith.  If 
still  they  withheld  their  consent — as  was  only  to  be 
supposed  they  would — then  all  the  machinery  was 
ready  for  that  secret  marriage  if  it  were  necessary. 

Therefore  she  was  full  of  potential  apprehen- 
sions, alive  with  curiosity  and  as  excited  as  a  filly 
in  a  forty-acre  field.  But  not  for  one  moment  did 
she  show  it  to  John. 

Women  are  amazingly  demure  and  never  more 


A  Prelude  to  a  Family          157 

so  than  when  there  is  a  pulse  throbbing  in  that  vein 
in  the  neck,  another  beating  in  the  temple,  while 
unseen  knuckles  are  rapping  on  their  hearts  with 
all  the  impatience  of  a  postman  who  has  wasted  five 
minutes  of  his  round  talking  to  the  girl  at  the  last 
house  but  one. 

She  sat  there  in  the  silence  of  those  first  few 
moments,  doing  no  more  than  perform  those  odd 
tricks  with  her  parasol.  They  were  invisible  signs 
now  she  was  making  on  the  unimpressionable  sur- 
face of  those  asphalt  paths. 

It  is  hard  enough  to  know  what  a  woman  would 
be  saying  when,  like  Euclid  in  the  susceptive  dust, 
she  can  draw  out  the  most  elaborate  diagram  of 
her  thoughts.  And  when  she  has  no  other  medium 
than  that  of  impassive  stone,  it  would  need  some- 
thing of  a  magician  or  an  Egyptologist  to  decipher 
her  hieroglyphics. 

At  last  she  could  bear  his  want  of  comprehension 
no  longer. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  tell  me?"  she  whispered. 

He  looked  at  her  for  an  instant,  as  though  he 
knew  he  was  behaving  like  the  most  despicable  cad 
in  the  world  and  then  he  said: 

"We  shall  have  to  be  married  in  a  Registry 
office." 

The  lawyer's  clerk,  moving  just  like  a  dog  from 
his  seat  which  the  sun  had  left  to  another  on  which 
the  sun  was  beating  down,  heard  him  as  he  passed: 

"We  shall  have  to  be  married  in  a  Registry 
office." 

He  knew  the  words  well,  had  often  heard  them 


158      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

in  that  room  whose  windows  could  just  be  seen 
through  the  plane  trees.  He  heard  the  pitiable 
accent  of  self-reproach  in  which  they  were  spoken 
and  all  the  calculations  of  his  pension,  if  supposing 
he  were  to  live  to  eighty-seven — which  was  to  be 
hoped — went  out  like  a  rocket  from  the  mathe- 
matical functions  of  his  brain. 


Chapter  XXI :    The  Blotting-Paper, 
Process 

HOW  her  face  fell  I  She  came  down  from  the 
heights  of  the  zenith  in  which  she  had  been 
soaring,  as  a  lark,  with  its  song  of  a  sudden 
ended,  that  drops  like  a  stone  to  earth. 

For  whereas  it  may  be  one  thing  to  marry  in 
secret  from  one's  parents,  which  in  its  way  is  a 
species  of  adventure  and  savors  of  the  best  tradi- 
tions of  Romance,  it  would  appear  to  be  another 
thing  in  the  heart  of  a  woman  to  hide  that  secret 
from  the  world.  Some  of  the  finest  Romances  in 
the  world  have  set  out  with  the  adventure  of  a 
run-away  wedding;  horses  galloping  post-haste 
through  the  night,  breathless  parents,  generally  fat 
and  always  perspiring,  following  in  pursuit,  changes 
of  steeds  at  wayside  inns,  then  on  again  into  the 
darkness,  but  always  at  the  end  of  the  journey  a 
priest  with  the  blessing  of  the  church;  something  at 
least,  when  all  was  accomplished,  for  the  world  to 
hear  of. 

But  a  registrar  of  births,  deaths  and  marriages 
for  priest  and  a  varnished  deal  table  in  a  dingy 
office  for  an  altar!  It  had  all  the  suggestion  of 
a  shoddy  business  to  Jill,  wherein  there  was  no  color 


160      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

of  Romance  but  rather  all  the  sordid  appurtenances 
of  a  doubtful  intrigue. 

In  those  first  few  moments  she  dared  not  speak. 
She  could  not  have  told  him  how  squalid  the  whole 
vista  of  life  had  become  with  just  the  mere  mention 
of  those  words — Registry  Office. 

For  here  was  part  of  the  spirit  of  her  illusion, 
that  she  needed  her  property  of  appearances  to 
carry  the  matter  through.  So  closely  was  John 
associated  in  all  he  did  and  said  and  thought  with 
the  doubtful  advantages  of  Fetter  Lane  that  in  the 
surface  consciousness  of  her  mind,  she  had  ac- 
cepted it  as  a  home  in  exchange  for  that  good  ad- 
dress which  would  have  been  plainly  printed  on  the 
top  of  her  notepaper  in  the  establishment  Mr. 
Skipwith  would  have  provided  for  her. 

Here  was  a  courage  which  was  only  the  less  great 
by  measure  of  the  consciousness  she  had  of  it. 
There  was  not  a  girl  of  her  acquaintance  would 
have  such  daring  of  spirit.  She  knew  that.  She 
knew  full  well  she  was  making  a  great  sacrifice  for 
love. 

Only  once,  it  is  true,  had  she  seen  Fetter  Lane 
and  those  rooms  she  was  one  day  to  occupy  over 
Mrs.  Meakin's  shop,  but  the  impression  of  them 
had  been  stamped  indelibly  on  her  memory.  She 
was  certain  she  would  never  let  John  know  that 
she  had  made  any  sacrifice;  but  there  it  was,  no  girl 
in  all  the  circle  of  her  acquaintance  would  have  done 
so  much  for  love  as  she. 

But  this  information  of  John's,  sweeping  out  her 
picture  of  Romance,  seemed  more  in  the  first  mo- 


The  Blotting-Paper  Process      161 

merits  of  that  silence  than  her  courage  could  bear. 
A  Registry  Office!  It  was  a  place,  she  fancied  it, 
in  a  dingy  street  where  women  who  were  divorced 
from  their  husbands  were  married  to  the  co-re- 
spondent. There  was  nothing  above-board  about  it. 
It  was  the  last  resource  the  State  offered  to  keep 
people  from  shame. 

Had  he  asked  her  to  be  married  in  a  second-hand 
wedding  dress,  procured  from  a  Jew  clothiers  in 
the  Whitechapel  Road,  he  could  not  have  put  greater 
strain  upon  her  love. 

And  all  this  time,  he  knew  it.  There  he  was, 
sitting  beside  her  with  their  silence,  learning  his 
lesson  of  how  great  a  cad  a  man  can  be  to  a  woman 
when  love  and  passion  and  all  the  impulses  of  life 
are  riding  through  his  heart,  driving  all  else  before 
them. 

Another  moment  of  that  silence  and  he  would  have 
leapt  of  a  sudden  to  his  feet,  setting  her  free,  giving 
her  back  to  her  world  of  less  shoddy  appearances 
and  carrying  his  love  away  with  him — a  thing  of 
patches  but  at  least  his  very  own. 

Another  moment  the  story  of  John  and  Jill  would 
have  been  ended.  The  tears  were  filling  in  her  eyes, 
mounting  to  the  very  brim.  Had  she  suddenly 
turned  her  head,  they  would  assuredly  have  tumbled 
out.  Without  looking,  John  knew  the  pools  that 
were  gathering.  He  had  let  her  fight  it  out  in 
silence;  in  silence  but  not  alone.  He  had  taken  her 
hand  in  his  own  as  it  lay  in  her  lap.  But  never 
once  had  the  touch  of  her  fingers  responded. 

Observing  this  action  of  John's  from  the  next 


1 62      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

seat,  the  old  lawyer's  clerk  picked  up  those  financial 
calculations  where  they  had  fallen  and  put  them 
away  in  the  tail  pocket  of  his  mind. 

Everybody's  mind  wears  the  garments  associated 
with  their  worldly  habiliments.  A  woman  hides  her 
thoughts  in  just  those  secret  places  you  might  expect, 
as  often  as  not  threading  them  with  a  piece  of 
colored  silk  ribband  which  serves  no  purpose  a  man 
could  ever  see.  And  when  it  is  an  actor,  wearing 
silken  tights,  he  has  no  room  to  store  a  thought 
anywhere. 

In  those  tragic  moments,  however,  neither  of 
them  were  aware  of  the  existence  of  the  lawyer's 
clerk.  That  absence  of  response  in  Jill's  fingers  was 
accusing  John  with  its  silent  reproach  until  he  could 
endure  it  no  longer.  All  that  was  in  her  mind  he 
knew.  He  felt  no  resentment.  Accused  himself  of 
a  want  of  nobility,  not  her,  and  with  every  moment 
became  increasingly  conscious  of  the  frayed  ends 
of  his  trousers. 

She  felt  the  relaxation  of  his  hand  on  hers  as 
he  was  about  to  get  of  a  sudden  to  his  feet  and 
whether  she  guessed  its  meaning  or  not  would  re- 
quire more  than  the  calculation  of  a  scientific  psy- 
chologist to  determine.  Whatever  it  was,  she  came 
to  some  mastery  over  her  emotion  of  disappoint- 
ment when  she  asked  him  why  they  must  be  married 
in  a  Registry  Office. 

Then  it  was  possible  to  sneak  a  handkerchief  out 
of  her  little  bag  and  merely,  be  it  understood,  to 
blow  her  nose.  No  woman  who  is  really  brave  ever 
cries  unless  the  situation  demands  it  of  her.  She 


The  Blotting-Paper  Process      163 

will  make  funny  grimaces,  or  she  will  take  violent 
interests,  sometimes  she  will  even  give  you  the  big- 
gest of  her  smiles.  But  tears  are  things  no  brave 
or  sensible  woman  ever  wastes.  They  are  her  only 
real  economy. 

Jill's  lip  had  trembled.  Her  forehead  had 
puckered.  She  had  pulled  at  a  thread  of  cotton 
sticking  out  of  the  thumb  of  her  glove  as  though 
she  had  wished  to  discover  whether  it  were  of 
Coutts's  manufacture  or  a  more  inferior  class  of 
article.  She  had  resorted  to  all  those  tricks  a  woman 
has  need  of  when  she  is  doing  her  best.  Then, 
putting  her  question,  she  had  blown  her  nose,  after 
which  there  was  every  excuse  in  the  world  for  any 
woman  to  begin  that  peculiar  process  of  fishing  for 
moisture  out  of  the  corner  of  the  eye.  It  is  like 
picking  up  a  blot  of  ink  with  a  piece  of  blotting 
paper. 


Chapter  XXII :  A  Passing  Memory  of  the 
Lawyer's  Clerk 

A,L  these  pre-occupations,  the  lawyer's  clerk 
witnessed  from  his  seat  further  down  the 
path.  They  set  his  memory  in  motion.  He 
remembered  the  advice  he  had  once  given  to  the 
senior  partner  who  was  dealing  with  a  tearful  client, 
absorbed  in  the  description  of  her  husband's  in- 
fidelities. 

In  despair  the  senior  partner  had  come  to  the 
offices  downstairs  asking  what  the  deuce  he  was 
to  do. 

"Let  her  cry,"  said  the  clerk.  "Go  out  of  the 
room  and  leave  her  alone.  Let  her  cry." 

"But  I  can't  step  out  of  the  room  all  that  time," 
declared  the  senior  partner.  "She's  in  my  office. 
She's  been  weeping  already  for  half  an  hour.  I 
should  never  get  any  work  done." 

"Two  minutes'll  be  enough  if  you  shut  the  door," 
said  the  clerk. 

This  was  the  story  as  told  in  a  moment  of  do- 
mestic tribulation  by  the  lawyer's  clerk  to  his  wife. 

And  the  wife  of  the  lawyer's  clerk  had  forthwith 
dried  her  eyes. 


164 


Chapter  XXIII :  *A  Young  John 

WHEN  the  blotting-paper  process  was  done 
with  and  Jill,  with  her  fight  for  courage, 
had  asked  him  why  they  must  be  married 
in  a  Registry  Office,  John  seized  both  her  hands 
with  the  gratitude  he  felt. 

"Why  can't  we  be  married  in  a  church?"  she 
said. 

He  began  then  in  the  most  delicate  way  he  knew, 
to  tell  her  why  and  his  conception  of  delicacy  in 
these  matters,  consisted  in  going  round  and  round, 
like  a  child  in  a  maze,  searching  for  a  way  out. 
She  could  offer  him  none.  In  her  ignorance  of  the 
world  of  wonderful  reality  in  which  they  found  them- 
selves, she  had  none  to  offer.  From  all  that  she 
could  gather  out  of  the  rigmarole  he  gave  her,  the 
priest  had  no  actual  power  to  refuse. 

"It's  only,"  said  John  in  despair,  "that  he  makes 
a  fuss  about  it." 

"But  what's  there  to  make  a  fuss  about?"  she 
asked. 

Well,  then  he  had  to  tell  her.  But  it  would  be 
scarcely  fair  to  say  how  he  managed  it. 

There  they  were,  a  pair  of  children,  just  standing 
on  the  door-step  of  a  wonderful  world  and  waiting 
for  the  door  to  open.  Life  was  on  the  other  side 

165 


166      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

of  the  threshold  and  what  it  is  and  what  they  thought 
it  might  be,  may  well  be  two  very  different  things. 
To  put  it  into  words  would  be  like  looking  up  the 
meaning  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  in  a  Nuttall's  Dic- 
tionary. 

They  talked  about  babies,  as  it  was  foreseen  at 
the  beginning  of  this  situation  that  they  must.  There 
may  be  those  who  have  wondered  how  the  deuce 
they  were  going  to  do  it.  God  knows  how  they  did. 

Had  the  lawyer's  clerk  been  able  from  his  seat 
to  catch  an  odd  phrase  here  or  there — which  is  not 
to  say  he  did  not  try  his  best — he  might  have 
thought  they  were  talking  about  a  litter  of  puppies 
or  a  nest  full  of  wrens.  Creatures  was  the  word 
in  most  common  use.  To  call  them  just  children 
and  talk  about  a  family  would  have  been  to  use 
words,  stripped  of  all  their  clothes.  Some  words 
are  naked  and  in  their  conversation,  all  wrapped 
in  the  garments  of  timid  suggestion,  the  word — 
children  and  family — would  have  stood  out  naked 
and  unashamed. 

Doubtless  their  talk  would  have  made  a  doctor 
hold  his  sides  with  laughter.  Free  education  had 
not  taught  them  much.  Again  and  again  the  blushes 
ran  their  nimblest  out  into  the  daylight  of  her 
cheeks.  He  coughed  and  hummed  and  hawed  and 
found  himself  inextricably  mixed  up  in  sentences 
where  the  inevitable  naked  word  would  loom  up  out 
of  the  distance.  In  such  moments  he  would  drop 
the  sentence  wildly  where  it  was  and  run  like  a  hare 
into  the  silence. 

These  were  terrible  moments,  all  hot  and  sticky 


A  Young  John  167 

and  close.  And  what  a  relief  it  was  when  they  had 
passed!  But  terrible  as  they  may  have  been,  there 
was  yet  the  thrill  of  something  wonderful  behind 
every  instant  of  them.  Somehow  the  sunshine  man- 
aged to  beat  into  those  awkward  silences.  They 
were  neither  chill  nor  dark. 

There  he  was  sitting  out  in  a  garden  in  the  heart 
of  London,  talking  about  his  children  to  their 
mother,  when  he  had  not  as  yet  so  much  as  got  a 
wife.  This  is  the  quality  of  make-believe,  having 
more  of  the  truth  for  company  than  all  the  facts 
in  the  world. 

Thus,  even  in  so  prosaic  a  place  as  this,  with  the 
houses  all  about  them  where  the  facts  of  life  are 
forever  being  tied  up  with  red  tape,  sorted,  stamped 
— at  great  expense — and  put  away  in  japanned  tin 
deed  boxes,  with  the  name  of  the  owner  of  the 
fact  painted  thereon  in  bold  gilt  letters,  even  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  the  make-believe  of  John  Grey 
seemed  at  length  more  real  to  Jill  than  all  the  prac- 
tical considerations  they  had  of  life  in  Prince  of 
Wales's  Terrace. 

And  when  she  understood  that  they  must  wait, 
just  for  those  first  few  years  or  so,  what  more 
natural  than  that  the  time  of  waiting  should  all  go 
by  as  they  sat  there  on  their  seat  under  the  plane 
trees.  Two  years!  Three  years!  You  have  only 
to  snap  your  fingers  and  it  does  not  even  matter 
if  you  cannot  make  a  noise  with  them,  when  the 
talk  is  on  wings  that  beat  the  air  as  strong  as  these. 

"It'll  be  a  boy,"  said  John. 

"Why  do  men  always  want  a  boy?"  she  asked. 


168      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  inquired. 

"A  boy,"  said  she. 

And  half  she  shut  her  eyes,  looking  out  across 
the  rays  and  the  spaces  of  sunshine  that  thrust  their 
way  through  the  plane  trees  and  lit  with  gold  those 
patches  on  the  trunks  where  every  winter  the  bark 
strips  off  to  show  you  that  it's  limbs  are  really  clean. 

You  can  guess  what  she  saw. 

A  young  John  to  make  an  old  world  new.  A 
thing  of  breeches,  torn  and  frayed,  tramping  to- 
wards life  with  all  their  beliefs,  their  faiths  and 
hopes,  polished  and  shining  in  his  eyes.  A  young 
John,  all  sudden  and  unexpected,  leaping  out  of  a 
moment  of  love,  like  a  bird,  flinging  out  into  free- 
dom from  its  cage.  A  young  John,  shouting  out 
the  secret  of  their  passion  to  the  whole  world,  and 
caring,  not  the  curse  of  a  tinker  who  heard  his 
voice.  A  young  John,  young  enough  to  bear  the 
treasures  they  had  gathered  in  their  minds,  on  into 
a  distance  where  all  those  who  travel  can  never  hope 
to  reach,  but  where  the  mere  sense  of  traveling  on 
and  on  and  on  is  joy  enough  to  keep  their  hearts  in 
tune. 

Under  the  falling  soots  from  heaven  that  dark- 
ened the  clingy  houses  and  lay  on  the  asphalt  paths, 
there  was  no  essence  of  fact  about  one  of  the  things 
they  saw,  but  it  sent  Jill  back  to  Prince  of  Wales's 
Terrace  with  a  tune  in  her  heart  and  for  the  rest 
of  that  day,  the  two  coppers  John  jingled  in  his 
pocket  had  all  the  music  in  theme  of  a  thousand 
golden  sovereigns  of  the  realm. 


Chapter  XXIV:   Mrs.  Rowse  Reports  a 
Case  before  the  Magistrate 

BRINGING  his  cup  of  tea  to  John  one  morning 
after  a  complete  and  unexpected  absence  on 
the  previous  day,  Mrs.  Rowse  revealed  all 
the  unmistakable  signs  of  a  black  eye. 

It  was  an  accident,  she  said,  while  she  and  her 
husband  had  been  talking. 

The  need  for  an  explanation  of  this  statement  had 
apparently  made  itself  obvious  to  others  besides 
John.  Mrs.  Rowse  had  had  to  appear  before  recog- 
nized authorities  who  made  it  their  business  to 
interfere  and  inquire  into  these  matters. 

"No  affair  of  theirs !"  she  declared  with  emphasis. 
"I  don't  want  to  deny  my  'usband  was  a  bit  ex- 
cited. 'E  was  talkin'  and  he  thumps  the  table  with 
'is  fist — so  'e  does  often  and  there  was  a  glass 
a-standin'  on  the  edge  of  the  table  and  it  fell  off. 
If  I  'adn't  a  been  quick  that  glass  'ud  a  been  broken. 
But  I  stretched  out  quick  an'  I  caught  it — that  glass 
cost  threepence — an'  doin'  it  I  bumped  my  forehead 
'gainst  the  corner  of  the  table.  Enough  to  give 
anybody  a  black  eye." 

John  declared  he  was  under  the  impression  that 
in  similar  circumstances  he  would  have  sustained  a 
black  eye  himself. 

169 


World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"What  they  wants,  'avin'  'im  up  an'  bindin'  'im 
to  keep  the  peace  beats  me.  Puttin'  it  all  on  the 
rates,  as  my  'usband  says,  as  if  people  didn't  'ave 
to  pay  enough  for  bein'  in  the  world  as  it  is,  without 
makin'  it  an  expense  for  a  man  an'  wife  to  'ave 
a  little  argument  about  things  that  concern  no  one 
but  themselves." 

"So  it  was  really  the  talking  that  did  it?"  said 
John. 

From  the  leaning  attitude  which  she  always 
adopted  when  she  had  something  of  interest  to  her- 
self to  relate,  Mrs.  Rowse  stood  up  to  work  again 
and  began  dusting  and  putting  to  rights  as  though 
she  were  suddenly  conscious  of  wasting  precious 
time.  She  did  not  answer  his  question. 

"And  I  suppose  you  defended  him  through  thick 
and  thin?"  John  remarked  presently  as  he  sipped 
his  tea  and  smoked  his  first  cigarette. 

It  is  as  old  as  the  hills,  but  always  a  subject 
of  interest,  that  strange  fidelity  of  the  wife  to  the 
husband  who  beats  her.  Of  course  there  is  the 
wage-earning  argument  to  account  for  it  in  many 
cases.  It  probably  does  account  for  the  substance 
of  her  fidelity,  but  not  the  spirit  of  it.  To  John, 
with  his  ideas  about  women,  it  was  the  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  inconceivable  beastliness  of 
human  nature  which  impelled  any  man  to  lay  his 
hands  on  a  woman  to  beat  her.  And  for  the  woman 
who  submitted  to  it — unless  for  the  wage-earning 
reason  and  the  need  to  keep  the  children  in  bread — 
he  had  nothing  but  contempt.  It  was  a  desecration 
to  love  to  conceive  that  it  could  be  beaten  like  a 


Mrs.  Rowse  Reports  a  Case      171 

dog;  for  while  the  love  of  a  dog  was  a  beautiful 
thing  it  was  the  love  of  a  beast  for  its  master.  But 
little  of  the  beast  was  to  be  found  in  woman;  but 
little  of  the  master  to  be  found  in  man. 

The  condition  of  beastliness  was  to  be  traced  in 
women  here  and  there,  but  that  was  a  very  different 
thing.  The  condition  of  mastery  you  might  dis- 
cover in  many  men.  But  to  John,  as  he  realized 
the  sex,  it  was  the  spiritual  beauty  in  the  minds  of 
women  that  would  save  the  world  from  the  ugliness 
of  the  physical  violence  of  men. 

Any  woman  then  who  submitted  to  the  brutality 
of  her  husband  and  defended  him  against  the  law 
was  traitor  to  the  ideals  of  her  sex  in  the  eyes  of 
John.  He  had  no  pity  for  her.  He  had  no  pity 
for  Mrs.  Rowse. 

There  he  lay  in  his  bed  as  she  dusted  his  room, 
while  a  dispassionate  mood  settled  upon  his  mind. 
He  would  sooner  a  man  murdered  a  woman  than 
beat  her.  There  might  be  passion  in  murder. 
There  could  be  nothing  but  the  profane  insult  of 
disrespect  when  he  struck  her  in  the  face  with  his 
fist  or  laid  a  stick  about  her  body. 

The  more  he  thought  of  it  and  round  it  and 
about  it,  the  more  he  imagined  himself  in  the 
critical  temper  of  the  magistrate  trying  the  case. 
He  began  plying  her  with  questions,  shrewd  and 
cunning  that  made  her  slip  in  her  statements  and 
come  at  last  to  a  worse  state  of  confusion  than  she 
had  been  in  the  court. 

There  was  no  denying  it  at  last.  Her  husband 
had  beaten  her.  There  had  been  the  hell  of  a  row. 


172      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

The  whole  neighborhood  of  Peabody  Buildings  had 
been  out  to  watch  them. 

He  had  come  home  drunk.  Well,  not  so  drunk 
— leastways  not  sober. 

"Some  men  get  the  drink  out  of  'em  with  a 
stick,"  said  she,  "an'  if  I  cries  out  Vs  'urtin'  me — 
which  I  wouldn't  do,  not  for  nothin' — it  seems  to 
satisfy  'im  sooner.  'E  doesn't  want  to  do  no 
'arm  to  me.  So  I  cries,  but  not  because  it  'urts. 
I  wouldn't  give  'im  that  satisfaction  if  it  didn't  'elp 
'im  out  of  his  rage.  Only  this  night  'e  went  on 
longer  than  usual." 

She  laid  her  hand  on  her  breast. 

"If  you  saw  the  bruise  I  got  there,"  said  she. 

John  sat  up,  a  blaze  of  emotion  and  anger,  in 
his  bed.  There  can  be  little  doubt  about  it,  that 
what  he  lost  in  the  dignity  of  his  appearance  with 
his  hair  at  sixes  and  sevens  at  that  time  in  the 
morning,  he  must  have  made  up  for  by  the  passion 
in  all  he  said. 

It  was  her  lying  her  hand  on  her  breast;  it  was 
the  picture  of  that  bruise  she  had  brought  to  his 
mind  which  had  done  it.  He  felt  this  an  insult  to 
the  sex  for  which  he  had  nothing  but  reverence  and 
worship,  an  insult  too  deep  to  be  borne. 

For  if  there  were  any  one  thing  to  him  more 
sacred  about  a  woman  than  another,  it  was  that 
fount  at  which  her  child  must  take  its  first  long 
draught  of  life.  In  the  filthy  savagery  of  war  he 
knew  it  was  the  wont  of  an  infuriate  soldiery  to  cut 
off  the  breasts  of  women  in  an  enemy's  land.  He 
knew  that  all  through  the  history  of  humanity's 


Mrs.  Rowse  Reports  a  Case      173 

struggle  through  the  swelter  and  ugliness  of  life, 
such  deeds  had  been  done  in  the  name  of  all  the 
highest  ideals,  even  to  that  of  Christianity. 

But  there,  in  his  rooms — though  it  were  only  that 
Mrs.  Rowse  who,  when  a  man  is  lonely,  God  sends 
to  clear  away  the  breakfast  things — to  see  her  lay 
her  hand  on  her  breast,  to  hear  her  say:  "If  you 
saw  the  bruise  I've  got  there,"  it  was  more  than 
his  emotion  could  endure  in  silence. 

He  sat  up  in  his  bed,  pouring  forth  a  torrent 
of  abuse  upon  her  head  that  she  should  defend  such 
a  man  as  would  thus  insult  and  ill-treat  her. 

"You're  his  master,  not  he  yours,"  he  shouted 
at  her.  "If  there's  anything  beautiful  in  life  in 
Peabody  Buildings,  you  brought  it  there — not  him. 
If  there's  any  suffering  that's  been  borne,  it  was  not 
him  to  bear  it,  but  you,  every  time  you  brought  your 
children  into  the  world.  Your  children  I  Not  his. 
You  shaped  and  made  them.  You  fed  them.  Half 
his  life  he's  been  looking  on.  One  day  there'll  come 
a  civilization  when  we  shall  organize  life  like  the 
bees.  Your  man  and  his  like'll  find  the  slaughterer's 
knife  at  their  throats  then,  Mrs.  Rowse — and  God 
knows — p'raps  you'll  be  a  Queen." 

She  was  crying  by  this — p'raps  at  the  thought 
that  her  husband's  throat  might  one  day  be  slit, 
perhaps  at  a  vision  of  herself  as  a  Queen — a  vision 
resembling  the  figure  of  Britannia  on  top  of  the 
highest  circus  car  in  the  procession.  It  was  anyhow 
a  sniveling  business  made  up  mainly  of  sentimental- 
ity, for  she  had  scarcely  understood  a  word  he  had 
said. 


174      World' of  W onderJuC  Reality 

"I'm  sure,  Mr.  Grey,"  she  whimpered,  "I'm  sure 
you  ought  to  'ave  been  one  o'  them  lawyer  gentle- 
men the  way  you  can  talk.  You  ought  to  'ave  been 
in  the  Court  yesterday  mornin',  sayin'  somethin'  for 
that  young  girl  I  met  'ere  once — not  that  she  seemed 
to  want  any  one  say'm'  anythin'  for  'er." 

John  half  sprang  out  of  bed. 

"What  young  girl?"  he  asked. 

"That  young  girl  'ad  to  stop  a  night  once;  slep' 
in  your  sittin'  room  on  the  floor,  it  was  rainin'  so 
'ard  the  night  before,  she  couldn't  get  'ome. 
Wouldn't  'ave  your  bed — that's  wot  you  told  me. 
Said  she  was  used  to  sleepin'  on  the  floor  an'  slep' 
there." 

Amber ! 

In  some  unaccountable  way  John  felt  as  though 
a  violent  hand  had  seized  his  heart  and  shaken  it. 
The  ideals  of  womanhood  and  the  civilization  of 
bees  went  like  a  bolt  out  of  his  head. 

"What  was  she  doing  in  the  courts?"  he  asked. 

"Contempt.  But  there  wasn't  much  contempt 
about  her  as  far  as  I  could  see.  Laughin'  she  was 
— made  the  beak  laugh  once.  But  'e  was  down 
on  her.  Some  money  she  owed  one  of  them  shops 
in  Kensington.  Down  on  'er  like  a  nail  'e  was. 
'You  young  women,'  'e  says,  'think  you  can  go 
about  dressin'  yeerselves  up  in  this  and  that  without 
payin'  for  it.  D'yer  ever  think,'  'e  says,  'of  the 
fingers  as  'ave  tired  theirselves  out  makin'  the  things 
you  put  on  yer  backs  and  the  little  they  gets  paid 
for  it?  It's  a  class  of  thievin','  'e  says,  'which 
is  too — '  and  then  he  used  some  word  or  other — 


Mrs.  Rowse  Reports  a  Case      175 

*in  this  country  and  girls  of  your  class  ought  to  be 
made  an  example  of.  You've  done  this  sort  of 
thin'  before,'  'e  goes  on.  'I  find  you've  owed  bills 
before  an'  it's  most  difficult  to  get  money  out  of 
you,  so  unless  this  sum  is  paid  into  Court  by  to- 
morrow mornin'  at  10  o'clock,  I  shall  commit  you 
to  prison  for  the  full  term  of  seven  days.'  ' 

"What  did  she  say  to  that?" 

"She  just  shrug  'er  shoulders,"  replied  Mrs. 
Rowse,  "and  she  says,  'Can't  I  begin  my  seven  days 
now  because  there  isn't  a  penny  to  pay  it  with. 
I've  spent  all  I've  got.'  Everybody  laughed  at  that 
— beginning  'er  seven  days  then!  Well,  I  see  the 
sense  of  it  myself.  She  knew  she  couldn't  pay  it 
by  10  o'clock,  so  why  shouldn't  she  start  'er  seven 
days  without  any  'angin'  about?" 

"What  did  the  magistrate  say  then?" 

"Oh,  'e  got  fair  'uffy.  'This  ain't  no  laughin' 
matter,'  'e  says,  sittin'  up  stiff,  then  'e  turned  to  'er. 
*If  you've  got  no  self-respec','  he  says,  'the  sooner 
you  learn  what  it  is,  the  better.'  ' 

Mrs.  Rowse  began  to  laugh. 

"What  d'you  think  she  said  to  that?" 

John  might  have  guessed.     He  asked  to  be  told. 

"  'There  ain't  no  need  for  you  to  teach  me  self- 
respec','  says  she.  'You  being  there  and  I  bein' 
'ere  doesn't  give  me  no  information  about  you, 
though  it  lets  you  into  knowin'  that  I  owe  six 
pounds  four  and  threepence,'  that  was  the  sum  she 
owed  you  see.  'But  it  don't  do  more  than  that,'  says 
she.  'It  don't  give  you  no  idea  what  I  feel  or 
what  I  think.  But  sendin'  me  to  'Olloway,'  says 


176      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

she,  'won't  do  away  with  my  ideas  of  self-respec',' 
says  she,  'much  as  it  may  be  intended  to.'  All  that 
she  says  and  'e  sits  there  listenin'  to  'er,  too  dumb- 
foundered  to  say  a  word.  At  last  he  thumps  'is 
'and  on  the  bench.  'Be  quiet  1'  'e  shouts  out,  and 
she  stopped.  'Do  you  mean  to  tell  me  'ere,  now, 
in  this  court  that  you  'ave  no  intention  of  payin' 
even  a  part  of  that  money  to-morrow  mornin', 
when  you're  earnin'  sometimes  as  much  as  four 
pounds  a  week  as  an  artist's  model?'  I  never  knew 
she  was  an  artist's  model,  Mr.  Grey." 

John  nodded  his  head. 

"Go  on,"  he  said,  "what  did  she  say  to  that?" 

"  'I  might  'ave  the  best  intentions  in  the  world,' 
says  she,  smilin' — she  was  smilin'  all  the  time,  that's 
what  raddled  'im,  'but  the  bill's  six  pounds  four 
and  three  pence — and  there  ain't  no  place  I  know 
of  '11  give  me  that  much  for  a  'ole  bag  full  of  in- 
tentions.' Meanin'  yer  see  that  she  'adn't  got  no 
money — what  she'd  told  'im  v  before." 

"Well— did  he  let  her  off  then?" 

It  seemed  to  John,  notwithstanding  the  way  Mrs. 
Rowse  pointed  the  direction  of  purpose  in  her  story, 
that  it  must  end  all  right.  He  could  not  believe 
that  Amber  was  in  jail. 

"Let  'er  off?"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Rowse.  It  was 
evident  John  knew  little  of  the  dignity  of  the  law  and 
of  what  that  dignity  is  capable  when  it  is  affronted. 
"Let  'er  off?"  she  repeated.  "  'E  just  ask  her  was 
there  anyone  she  know  would  pay  the  money  for 
'er.  'No,'  she  says,  'an'  if  I  did  I  wouldn't  ask 
'em.  It's  my  bill,  not  theirs  and  if  I  can't  pay  it 


Mrs.  Rowse  Reports  a  Case      177 

one  way,  I  shall  'ave  to  pay  it  another.'  Well, 
that  was  enough  for  the  beak.  'E  sent  'er  off  for 
'er  seven  days  without  no  more  talk  about  it." 

"She's  gone  to  Holloway?"  exclaimed  John. 
"She's  in  jail?" 

"  'Olloway  was  what  they  said." 

John  leapt  out  of  bed  and  ordered  Mrs.  Rowse 
from  the  room. 

"What  d'yer  want  for  yer  breakfast?"  she  in- 
quired as  she  went. 

"Breakfast — damn  breakfast!"  said  he  and  was 
stripped  as  God  made  him  before  she  had  so  much 
as  closed  the  door. 


Chapter   XXV:     A   'Mere    Commercial 
Transaction 

WITH  the  assignment  to  the  chapel  of  Un- 
redemption  of  watch  and  chain,  cigarette 
case  and  all  those  things  on  the  fluctuating 
inventory  of  John's  possessions,   something  in  the 
neighborhood  of  twenty  pounds  had  been  accumu- 
lated to  defray  the  costs  of  wedding,  honeymoon 
and  those  miscellaneous  expenses  which  are  the  very 
deuce. 

This  sum  of  money  he  was  keeping  in  a  drawer 
of  his  desk.  There  was  no  need  to  put  this  in 
pawn  for  its  safety;  no  fear  that  any  temptation 
would  arise  more  inviting  than  the  prospect  for 
which  it  was  intended.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
something  to  look  at.  He  counted  it  over  every 
day,  not  from  any  fear  it  would  diminish  or  foolish 
hope  that  it  might  increase.  The  very  feeling  of 
it  induced  a  sense  of  power.  With  the  touch  of 
those  twenty  pieces  of  gold,  he  lost  all  those  sen- 
sations that  he  was  behaving  like  a  cad.  With 
twenty  pounds,  so  long  as  they  were  not  extravagant 
over  the  length  of  their  journey,  he  felt  he  could 
afford  to  treat  her  like  a  queen.  A  couple  of 
pounds  had  often  been  the  complete  sum  in  his 
pocket  when  he  had  set  out  with  Amber  into  the 


A  Mere  Commercial  Transaction    179 

country,  informing  Mrs.  Rowse  in  a  casual  voice 
that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  say  when  he  would 
be  back. 

It  was  to  that  drawer  in  his  desk  he  went,  with- 
out thought  of  breakfast,  as  soon  as  ever  the  clothes 
were  on  his  back. 

Amber  in  jail!  Punished  at  last  for  that  casual 
indifference  which  amounted  to  the  wildest  ignor- 
ance of  the  value  of  money!  Once  before,  as  may 
be  remembered,  he  had  saved  her  from  this  predica- 
ment by  the  pawning  of  the  heavy  fur  coat,  just  in 
the  middle  of  winter,  just  when  there  was  some  good 
reason  for  its  use.  That  it  had  not  been  redeemed 
again  till  summertime  is  an  old  story  and  bears  no 
repetition. 

But  Amber  in  jail!  He  never  stayed  to  analyze 
the  motives  of  his  sensations.  All  he  felt,  an  im- 
petuous realization,  was  that  the  indignity  of  it  was 
unbearable  for  one  single  moment  longer  than  was 
necessary. 

In  some  manner,  too,  which  he  put  down  to  a 
stupid  egotism  if  he  defined  it  at  all,  he  felt  that 
he,  no  less  than  she,  had  been  insulted.  His  cheeks 
flamed  and,  from  the  graphic  account  Mrs.  Rowse 
had  given  of  the  proceedings  in  court,  it  seemed 
likely  they  were  flaming  with  greater  heat  than 
Amber's. 

Always,  as  he  saw  her  and  indeed  as  she  presented 
herself  to  everyone,  she  had  been  absurdly  casual 
about  the  whole  of  life.  If  things  were  to  be,  they 
were  to  be.  Such  casualness  in  their  own  relation- 
ship had  been  more  of  her  attitude  than  of  his. 


180      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

He  recalled  her  words  again  then: 

"If  it  doesn't  last,  then  nobody's  hurt  by  it;  if 
it  does,  let  it  last  as  long  as  it  can." 

And  another  time  when  she  had  declared  she 
would  not  fight  for  love  if  ever  it  came  to  her — she 
would  not  fight  to  keep  it. 

"My  door's  always  on  the  latch,"  she  had  said, 
with  a  laugh.  "Love's  as  free  to  go  out  as  to  come 
in.  There's  no  good  putting  a  bolt  on  the  door 
when  love's  in  the  house.  It  must  go  where  it 
likes." 

And  laughing  then,  in  those  days,  before  love 
came  to  him,  he  had  agreed  that  love  was  like  a 
cat  coming  into  a  strange  house.  It  peered  into 
every  room,  examined  every  corner  and  if  you  did 
not  butter  its  paws  and  find  a  soft  cushion  for  it, 
like  as  not  it  would  creep  out  of  the  window. 

He  had  no  such  ideas  about  love  now.  Now  he 
knew  it  to  be  the  spirit  that  enters  the  house  of  the 
soul  and  open  doors  and  open  windows  can  never 
give  escape  to  the  purpose  that  it  brings.  It  was  the 
only  thing  in  Nature  that  defied  Nature;  the  only 
part  that  was  greater  than  the  whole  of  life. 

It  was  all  this  materialization  of  love,  he  believed 
now,  such  as  the  Churches  made  of  it,  such  as 
Father  Peake  had  advocated,  which  had  given  it 
that  similitude  to  a  cat  seeking  comfort  in  the  home 
it  found  for  itself. 

These  things  his  mind  ran  to  as  he  seized  seven 
of  the  golden  sovereigns  out  of  the  drawer  of  his 
desk  and  set  off  for  the  court  where  Amber's  offense 
of  contempt  was  placed  upon  the  records. 


A  Mere  Commercial  Transaction    181 

The  wrench  that  it  was  to  despoil  his  little  hoard 
seemed  nothing  so  great  as  for  any  other  reason 
he  would  have  expected  it  to  be.  Amber  was  in 
prison,  a  common  offender  against  the  law,  yet  he 
knew  so  well  what  she  had  meant  when,  according 
to  Mrs.  Rowse,  she  had  spoken  of  self-respect.  It 
was  that  same  self-respect  in  him,  which,  as  it  were, 
had  been  slapped  in  the  face  by  the  fact  that  she 
had  been  taken,  like  any  common  woman,  to  Hol- 
loway. 

He  seemed  to  be  learning  in  those  moments  as 
he  ran,  with  some  kind  of  fear  in  his  heels,  to  the 
court-house,  he  seemed  to  be  learning  how  there  was 
a  nobility  of  character  conveyed  in  all  that  verbose 
report  of  Mrs.  Rowse  which  he  realized  now  he 
had  known  of  always,  but  never  taken,  as  it  were, 
into  account. 

She  might  so  easily  have  applied  to  him  for 
assistance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  actually  knew 
he  had  in  his  possession  that  twenty  pounds.  He 
wondered,  as  he  ran,  how  many  women  would  have 
chosen  to  go  to  jail,  with  all  it  meant  in  a  world 
of  appearances,  rather  than  relieve  him  of  the  sum 
of  six  pounds  four  and  three  pence  from  his  little 
hoard.  In  such  a  predicament  any  woman  might 
have  been  excused  the  loss  of  balance,  the  inability 
to  face  disgrace  even  at  the  cost  of  knocking  a 
hole  in  half  a  dozen  people's  honeymoons. 

Yet  all  she  had  said  when  the  magistrate  had 
asked  her  if  she  knew  of  anyone  to  help  her,  was: 

"No,  and  if  I  did  I  wouldn't  ask  them.  It's  my 
bill,  not  theirs." 


1 82      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

This  was  the  nobility  that  kept  her  a  steady  flame, 
whatever  quality  the  purpose  of  her  light  might  be. 

He  came  into  the  office  of  the  court-house  and, 
swallowing  a  lump  in  his  throat  which  had  come 
there  by  ways  he  had  no  time  for  discovery,  he 
looked  through  one  of  the  apertures  in  the  glass 
partition  and  said  he  vanted  to  pay  a  bill. 

It  took  a  deal  of  explaining  and  investigation, 
but  the  object  of  that  court,  as  the  clerk  explained 
to  him,  being  to  recover  money  at  any  cost  the  law 
allowed  them — dignity  being  the  least  of  all — he 
was  treated  with  due  consideration. 

"The  woman's  now  serving  seven  days  in  Hol- 
loway,"  said  the  clerk  .with  his  finger  on  an  entry 
in  a  huge  ledger. 

He  might  just  as  well  have  spat  in  John's  face. 

"P'raps  you'll  speak  of  her  as  a  lady,"  said  John, 
"when  you  get  her  six  pounds  four  and  three- 
pence." 

"Once  I  get  that,"  said  the  clerk  imperturbably, 
and  as  though  the  money  were  due  to  him,  "I  don't 
suppose  I  shall  'ave  cause  to  speak  of  'er  at  all." 

That  was  a  distinct  score  for  the  clerk.  So  clean 
a  score  was  it  that  John  guffawed  and  came  back  to 
a  sense  of  humor. 

For  it  was  a  funny  business,  this  transaction  over 
a  counter  to  buy  Amber  out  of  jail.  As  he  counted 
out  the  seven  sovereigns  and  received  his  change,  he 
would  scarcely  have  been  surprised  had  she  been 
handed  out  to  him,  neatly  wrapped  up  in  a  brown 
paper  parcel  with  a  little  leather  carrier  attached 
to  the  string. 


A  Mere  Commercial  Transaction    183 

"Is  she  free  now?"  he  asked  eagerly. 

"An  order  will  be  made  out  for  her  release,  sent 
through  to  the  Governor  of  the  prison,"  said  the 
clerk,  "and  she'll  come  out  at  once." 

"Do  you  mind  giving  me  time  just  to  get  down 
there,"  said  John.  "I — I  want  to  meet  her  as  she 
comes  out." 

The  clerk  looked  hard  at  John,  just  for  one 
moment,  then  he  shut  the  ledger. 

"The  order  has  to  be  made  out,"  said  he,  "then 
it  has  to  be  sent  down  to  the  prison.  The  lady 
will  scarcely  be  ready  by  the  time  you  arrive." 

He  might  have  been  opening  the  door  and  bowing 
John  out  of  the  shop. 


Chapter  XXVI :  Peeping  Tom 

JOHN   stood   outside   the   gates   of   Holloway 
prison  and  laughed. 

The  castellated  turrets,  the  gray  stone 
tower,  the  bastions,  the  ramparts,  the  massive  high 
walls,  all  combining  to  keep  Amber  incarcerated 
because  of  an  inability  to  pay  the  sum  of  six  pounds 
four  and  threepence,  seemed  pompous  enough  to  be 
incredibly  funny.  He  stood  at  the  entrance  of  the 
approach  to  the  mighty  gates  which  appeared  to  be 
shut  against  the  whole  world,  and  he  laughed. 

Suddenly  he  had  sense  of  the  humor  of  it  all  and 
no  longer  were  there  flames  in  his  cheeks  as  he 
thought  of  the  insult  to  her  self-respect. 

That  so  mighty  a  place  should  have  been  built 
for  the  imprisonment  of  a  few  unfortunates  who 
could  not  pay  their  bills  or  who  fell  foul  of  the 
jug  of  beer,  impressed  him  with  the  ludicrousness 
of  life  and  all  the  hollow  sham  of  appearances.  It 
was  like  the  gilt  and  marble  walls  of  the  Alcazar 
Restaurant  or  the  silk  and  brocade  of  the  modern 
theater  or  the  countless  dazzling  lights  of  the  com- 
mon gin  palace. 

The  whole  purpose  of  it  was  nothing  more  nor 
less  than  a  show — a  circus  procession — a  combina- 
tion of  glitter  and  tinsel  to  catch  the  eye,  not  of  the 

184 


Peeping  Tom  185 

child  in  a  man,  but  of  that  weariness  which  comes 
to  the  spirit  grown  old  in  struggling  for  the  things 
of  no  account. 

For  the  child,  though  often  it  may  be  given  and 
plays  with  the  inexpensive  toy  which  with  its  paints 
and  its  trapping  apes  reality,  yet  infinitely  pre- 
fers the  first  inanimate  object  that  comes  to  its  hand 
with  which  to  build  a  world. 

All  such  make-believe  as  this,  the  tired  spirit  of 
most  men  and  women  have  no  energy  to  create. 
They  must  have  their  world  all  ready-made  for 
them,  wherefore  there  is  gilt  on  the  marble  walls 
of  their  restaurants  to  make  them  think  they  are 
getting  their  money's  worth  in  their  meal,  there  is 
silk  and  brocade  in  their  theaters  to  make  them 
think  they  are  comfortable  when  they  are  seeing  a 
foolish  play,  there  are  a  thousand  lights  in  their 
common  gin  palaces  to  make  them  think  the  world 
a  jolly  place. 

And  with  that  towering  edifice  in  the  Camden 
Road,  there  are  turrets  and  ramparts  and  bastions 
to  make  them  think  that  a  respectful  fear  of  the 
law  rather  than  an  inward  sense  of  honesty  is  the 
best  policy  in  the  long  run  of  life. 

Having  no  conception  of  the  time  it  would  take 
for  an  order  of  release  to  be  made  out  and  be  de- 
livered at  the  jail,  John  walked  down  the  approach 
between  the  Governor's  house  and  the  buildings 
opposite,  to  the  imposing  door  set  in  what  might 
have  been  a  medieval  portcullis  tower. 

The  old  horse  bus  by  which  he  had  come — 
an  ambling  pirate  with  no  fixed  schedule  of  price 


1 86      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

or  time — had  seemed  that  morning  the  slowest 
thing  on  earth.  Every  hansom  that  had  passed 
them,  he  imagined  contained  the  messenger  bearing 
the  order  for  her  release.  He  wanted  to  make  sure 
he  was  not  late.  He  knocked  with  the  heavy  knocker 
on  the  postern  door  and  would  not  have  been  so 
much  astonished,  as  mildly  interested,  had  it  been 
opened  by  a  man  in  a  cuirass  and  a  leather  jerkin, 
with  good  rich  medieval  oaths  all  ready  to  his  lips. 

The  smaller  door,  inlet  with  a  monastic-looking 
grille,  opened  and  he  was  faced  by  a  warden  or 
gatemen  in  a  black  uniform  who  rang  a  bunch  of 
keys  in  his  hand  as  though  to  make  atmosphere  and 
create  an  unmistakable  impression.  He  was  a 
bearded  man,  wearing  that  type  of  well-trimmed 
beard  that  looks  as  though  it  were  made  of  black 
horse-hair  and  steel  turnings.  His  expression  was 
still  and  cold.  The  look  in  his  eyes  told  John  he 
was  incapable  of  all  response  but  such  answers  as 
he  no  doubt  had  learnt  by  heart. 

He  was  far  worse  than  a  man  with  medieval 
oaths,  with  cuirass  and  leather  jerkin.  Such  a  one 
might  have  beaten  your  body.  This  man  could 
torture  your  soul. 

The  sudden  impression  that  John  received  as  he 
looked  at  him  was  that  civilization  had  become  more 
cruel  than  ever  it  was  in  the  days  of  the  Thumb- 
screw and  the  Scavenger's  daughter.  It  had  learnt 
that  man  has  a  mind  as  well  as  a  body  to  torture, 
yet  was  still  in  ignorance  that  the  torturing  of  the 
mind  was  not  so  much  more  punishment  as  a  poison- 
ing of  the  soul. 


Peeping  Tom  187 

"I'm  sorry  to  trouble  you,"  he  began,  though 
trouble  would  appear  to  have  been  the  last  emo-" 
tional  state  of  which  he  was  capable,  "but  I'm  wait- 
ing for — a  lady.  She's — she's — well,  she's  coming 
out  very  shortly.  They're  sending  an  order  to  the 
Governor.  That's  what  they  told  me  and — well,  I 
didn't  want  to  miss  her.  I  thought  perhaps  you 
could  tell  me  if  you'd  seen  her  go  by.  She's  rather 
tall — she's  young — well,  about  twenty-three — and 
— and  tall — well,  I  said  that — with  brown  eyes. 
They  do  come  out  this  way,  don't  they?" 

He  looked  at  the  great  gates  with  their  iron  bars 
which  still  further  kept  the  way  into  the  inner  court- 
yard beyond.  To  him,  with  his  freedom,  standing 
there,  it  seemed  like  another  world,  a  world  of 
caged  souls,  more  silent  than  any  grave. 

The  official  waited  in  silence  while  John  stam- 
mered out  his  inquiries.  His  eye  was  like  an  im- 
plement you  might  pick  a  lock  with  and  he  pierced 
it  into  John's  brain,  not  as  John  imagined,  however, 
to  discover  his  relationship  with  Amber,  but  merely 
in  calculation  as  to  whether  there  were  a  promise 
of  a  tip. 

"They  do  come  out  this  way,  don't  they?"  re- 
peated John. 

"They  come  out  this  way,"  he  said  with  a  strong, 
rasping  voice,  "and  they  goes  in." 

"She — she  came  in  yesterday,"  said  John,  hoping 
that  might  help. 

"So  did  others,"  replied  the  official  to  the  proper 
accompaniment  of  his  keys. 

"It's  only  a  debtor — a  debtor's  case,"  John  ex- 


1 88      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

plained  quickly,  giving  him  every  assistance  to  jog 
his  memory.  But  apparently,  behind  that  cold  eye 
with  its  penetrating  glance  as  though  it  trusted  no 
man,  there  was  no  memory  to  distinguish  between 
ordinary  debtors  and  common  drunks.  What  is 
more,  there  seemed  to  be  a  kind  of  pride  that  stiff- 
ened the  horse-hair  beard  with  its  steel  turnings, 
a  kind  of  pride  that,  having  served  so  long  in  his 
Majesty's  service,  all  memory  about  such  matters 
as  these  was  scarcely  worth  while.  He  left  it  to 
John  to  estimate  what  worth  it  had. 

"Well,  has  anyone  come  out — been  released  I 
mean — in  the  last  hour  or  so?"  he  asked. 

"There's  always  people  coming  out,"  replied  the 
official,  "but  it's  not  for  me  to  know  'ave  they 
been  released  for  debt  or  drink.  If  they've  got 
any  pride  about  them,  they  walk  as  though  they'd 
come  in  by  mistake  and  'ad  just  found  the  right  way 
out.  'Oh,'  they  says  when  they  sees  the  door  open, 
as  though  it  was  shut  last  time  they  came  by  and 
they  'adn't  noticed  it." 

John  put  his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  at  that  move- 
ment all  the  penetrating  look  of  the  sharp  implement 
vanished  out  of  the  official's  eye.  He  cast  a  glance 
behind  him  and  on  through  the  iron  gates.  Then 
he  made  a  movement  of  suppressed  swiftness  to  a 
small  room  at  the  side,  evidently  his  office. 

"Would  you  like  to  come  in  'ere  for  a  moment, 
sir,  while  you're  talkin'?" 

His  voice  no  longer  rasped.  You  could  not  have 
filed  through  a  ginger-beer  wire  with  it.  From 
somewhere  behind  the  waistcoat  of  that  black  uni- 


Peeping  Tom  189 

form,  it  had  caught  a  human  note,  coming  from 
some  inner  man  that  hid,  concealed,  behind  that 
official  exterior. 

There  in  his  little  office,  with  its  high  desk  and 
its  stool — the  only  furniture  around  the  whitened 
walls — there  followed  a  transaction  for  which  no 
receipt  but  that  of  muttered  gratitude  was  forth- 
coming; a  transaction  which  no  officer  in  his 
Majesty's  Service  would  probably  understand,  since, 
as  in  John's  case,  it  produced  nothing  of  any  value. 

"If  you  wait  outside,  sir,"  said  the  officer  as  they 
came  out  again,  "you'll  most  likely  see  the  lady 
comin'  out.  They  all  comes  out  this  way." 

Which  he  might  have  said  in  the  first  five  min- 
utes. It  was  only  the  tone  of  voice  that  had  changed 
by  reason  of  that  mysterious  transaction  in  the  little 
room.  Seeing,  however,  that  he  could  have  made 
no  greater  concession  short  of  stripping  off  his  uni- 
form and  standing  there  as  it  might  be  in  the  service 
of  God  rather  than  of  the  King,  he  felt  he  had 
fulfilled  his  duty  by  the  exchange. 

Nevertheless,  as  John  was  there  to  purchase  in- 
formation and  not  manners,  the  outcome  of  the 
affair  might  have  been  disagreeable  had  not  Amber 
at  that  moment,  accompanied  by  a  wardress,  ap- 
peared in  the  inner  court  on  the  other  side  of  the 
big  iron  gate. 

With  a  sudden  sensation  that  he  was  prying  upon 
something  he  should  never  have  seen — a  feeling 
that  he  was  a  Peeping  Tom  in  the  empty  streets  of 
Coventry — John  pressed  back  against  the  wall  as 


190      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

the  officer  hurried  forward  with  his  keys  and  un- 
locked the  iron  gate. 

The  wardress  handed  him  a  paper.  He  looked 
at  it  with  his  official  eye.  He  stood  aside  and  let 
Amber  pass  through.  Straight  ahead  of  her  she 
looked,  conscious  that  a  figure  was  standing  there, 
but  never  for  an  instant  letting  her  eyes  dwell  on 
John. 

Officially  the  keeper  passed  to  the  second  gate, 
with  its  smaller  door  which  he  unlocked  and  threw 
open  to  the  wide  approach  and  the  street  beyond. 

She  made  a  little  movement  of  surprise  and, 
"Oh,"  she  said,  just  as  though  she  had  come  that 
way  but  a  moment  before  and  had  never  realized 
there  was  that  means  of  exit. 

Still  then,  without  looking  to  right  or  left  of  her, 
she  stepped  out  into  the  world  again  and  the  officer 
swung  the  door  to  after  her. 

"That  was  a  debt,"  said  he  to  John.  "Most  of 
'em  goes  out  like  that.  'Eard  'er  say,  'Oh,'  did 
you?  I  suppose  she  wasn't  the  lady." 

"I'll  take  your  advice,"  said  John.  "I'll  go  out- 
side and  wait." 


Chapter  XXVII :   The  Release 

JOHN  allowed  Amber  to  keep  her  distance  until 
she  had  turned  into  the  Camden  Road;  in 
a  few  strides,  then,  he  was  at  her  shoulder. 
Evidently  the  sensation  that  she  was  being  followed 
had  conveyed  itself  to  her  through  the  sound  of 
his  footsteps.     He  saw  her  body  stiffen,  her  head 
set  in  the  rigid  pose  with  which  a  woman  prepares 
to  meet  a  disagreeable  encounter. 

In  an  illuminated  instant,  he  realized  what  was 
happening  in  her  mind.  She  had  just  come  out  of 
prison.  Here,  she  thought,  was  one  of  the  hawks 
that  hover  over  these  situations  in  a  woman's  life, 
the  moments  when  she  is  without  friend  or  counsel, 
when  she  is  susceptible  to  the  offer  of  help  from 
the  first  who  comes  her  way. 

Seeing  who  it  was,  there  was  an  unavoidably 
comic  side  to  the  affair.  It  intrigued  him  to  an 
impulse  of  mischief.  Had  it  been  the  most  incon- 
siderate of  practical  jokes,  he  could  not  have  re- 
sisted it  then.  But  it  was  not  inconsiderate.  The 
sooner  she  saw  the  humor  of  the  whole  situation, 
debt,  imprisonment,  release  and  all,  the  better, 
though  it  was  doubtful  in  Amber  if  she  could  ever 
lose  her  sense  of  humor  for  long. 

191 


192      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Increasing  the  length  of  his  stride,  John  came 
alongside  of  her. 

"Excuse  me,"  said  he  behind  her  shoulder. 

She  hurried  on,  looking  straight  ahead  of  her. 
Even  with  the  sharp  glimpse  of  the  profile  he  had, 
he  felt  he  could  see  her  eyes  flashing  with  an  angry 
determination.  And  then  as  she  walked,  with  John 
just  behind  her,  she  started  humming  a  tune, 
audibly  so  that  he,  whoever  he  might  be,  should 
hear  and  learn  thereby  what  little  consciousness  she 
had  of  his  presence. 

That  made  the  laughter  rise  in  his  throat. 

"Amber,"  said  he.  He  could  persist  with  the 
joke  no  longer. 

With  a  little  cry  on  her  lips,  she  stopped  and 
turned.  Then,  as  he  knew  she  must,  she  saw  the 
comic  ridiculousness  of  it  all  and  just  stood  there 
shaking  with  laughter.  They  both  laughed  to- 
gether. Nothing,  it  seemed,  could  stop  them,  until 
suddenly,  and  he  could  scarcely  see  when  the  change 
had  begun,  her  laughter  turned  and  with  a  little  snap 
had  broken.  At  one  moment  her  lips  were  parted 
in  the  animation  of  merriment  and  the  next  they 
were  trembling  to  tears.  At  one  moment  she  was 
looking  the  picture  of  mirth  and  the  next  that 
queer  grimace  she  made  when  she  cried  assumed 
the  place  of  it.  Her  eyes,  her  button  of  a  nose  that 
always  flung  the  fullest  compliment  of  beauty  aside 
to  keep  a  spirit  of  joy,  the  whole  of  her  face  all 
crinkled  up  in  a  ludicrous  expression  of  weeping. 
The  next  instant  she  was  hanging  tightly  on  to  his 
arm  and  walking  him  on  down  the  Camden  Road, 


The  Release  193 

half-hiding  her  head  in  the  bend  of  his  elbow  that 
none  of  the  passers-by  might  see  what  a  fool  she 
was. 

Following  by  instinct  the  precept  of  the  lawyer's 
clerk,  he  let  her  cry  it  out.  There  was  nothing  to 
say,  nothing  to  be  done.  Those  tears  had  made 
their  appearance,  synchronized  with  her  full  realiza- 
tion that  he  had  paid  her  debt;  that  he  had  set  her 
free;  that  he  it  was  who  had  been  waiting  at  the 
prison  gate  for  her;  that  he — but  beyond  that, 
nor  daring  to  let  her  mind  travel  into  the  country 
of  dreams,  she  could  not  go.  There  arose  an  im- 
passable barrier  and  at  that  barrier,  the  tears  had 
suddenly  driven,  a  hot  and  blinding  rain,  in  her  eyes. 

When  those  sounds  and  movements  by  which  you 
guess  a  woman  is  crying — for  you  must  not  look — 
had  subsided,  she  let  go  her  holding  of  his  arm. 

"You  should  never  have  done  it,"  said  she,  blow- 
ing her  nose — the  old  process,  the  crumpled  piece 
of  blotting  paper  screwed  into  the  serviceable  pad. 
"You  know  you  can't  spare  it.  I  didn't  mind — 
once  I  was  there.  And  what's  seven  days!  Once 
you  get  in  a  place  like  that,  you  feel  as  thougk  seven 
days  were  nothing.  It's  filled  with  the  ghosts  of 
people  whoVe  spent  years  there  and  they  keep  on 
whispering:  *Seven  days!  Seven  days  I  That's 
only  a  week  I  Think  of  fifty-two  weeks — and  then 
multiply  that  By  seven!'  ' 

"Rather  rough  on  you,"  said  John. 

"Why?" 

"Well — of  course  you  couldn't  do  it." 


194      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

She  stopped  him  short  in  the  road  and  she  pressed 
her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Thank  you  for  that,"  said  she. 

"For  what?" 

"For  that.  I  was  beginning  to  take  it  seriously." 
After  that  they  walked  on.  They  were  near  the 
Camden  station  before  they  spoke  again. 

"I'll  pay  it  back  as  soon  as  I  can,"  she  said  then. 
"When  do  you  want  it?  When  are  you  going  to 
be  married?" 

He  related  to  her  all  the  difficulties  that  had 
arisen  because  of  Father  Peake,  since  last  he  had 
seen  her  at  Le  Pauvre  Monsieur.  Hearing  his 
account  of  the  matter,  she  lost  her  temper  with  it 
all.  It  was  honest  wrath.  There  was  little  of  the 
play-actress  about  her.  There  was  no  respect  for 
dogma  or  the  precepts  of  the  Church  in  the  whole 
gamut  of  her  composition.  She  was  Pagan  to  the 
tips  of  her  fingers,  to  the  tilted  button  of  her  nose. 
Respect  for  creeds  with  her  had  vanished  the  first 
moment  she  had  had  to  set  out  and  face  life  on  her 
own,  and  that  had  been  when  she  was  little  more 
than  fifteen. 

What  her  philosophy  was,  it  would  have  been 
hard  to  say.  It  is  doubtful  whether  she  knew  what 
morality  meant.  She  did  what  came  to  her  heart 
to  do  and  all  that  came  to  her  heart  came  with  a 
wild  and  odd  sense  of  nobility.  Coming  or  going, 
she  hesitated  at  nothing  that  fell  her  way  and 
would  let  the  best  slip  out  of  her  hand. 

Life  was  a  game  to  her,  an  adventure,  a  voyage 
of  discovery,  an  exploration  in  the  jungle  of  Time. 


The  Release  195 

She  met  things  as  they  came,  with  the  look  of  that 
broad  space  she  had  between  the  eyes.  Pride  ruled 
and  tenderness  led  her.  She  never  could  have  told 
you  where  she  was  between  the  two.  Pride  would 
have  bid  her  ride  a  horse  to  death  rather  than  fail 
in  her  enterprise,  while  tenderness  would  have  bid 
her  give  her  life  rather  than  break  its  heart. 

Here  she  was  in  the  Hampstead  Road,  flinging 
out  incoherent  invectives  against  a  Church  that  was 
doing  no  more  than  interfere  in  a  matter  which  was 
like  to  make  the  deepest  scar  in  her  life.  There 
was  no  accounting  for  the  nobility  of  it  in  her.  It 
came  to  her  heart  and  she  did  it.  That  church  with 
its  Father  Peake  and  its  gospel  of  expediency,  might 
have  served  her  purpose  well.  With  the  barrier 
once  raised  between  John  and  Jill,  he  might  well 
return  to  her.  With  some  quality  more  of  heart  than 
understanding,  she  sensed  the  child  in  him.  His 
return  to  her  that  night  in  the  Hogarth  Road  was 
far  more  the  return  of  a  child  to  a  lap  that  would 
take  its  head  to  a  breast  that  would  hide  its  tears. 
Far  more  was  it  that,  than  the  return  of  a  man  to 
his  desires  to  drown  the  bitterness  of  his  despair. 
Nevertheless,  she  had  sent  him  away  and  lost  her 
chance  of  giving  him  belief. 

A  laugh  ever  came  to  her  lips — though  it  did  not 
reach  her  eyes — as  she  stood  by,  looking  on,  hearing 
herself  thus  shouting  odds  against  her  chances. 

"The  Church  makes  me  sick!"  said  she.  "Good 
Lord!  Haven't  you  got  to  go  through  Life  before 
you  get  to  Heaven.  And  surely,  isn't  life  what's 
given  you,  you  never  asked  for  it — and  isn't  heaven 


196      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

what  you  make !  What  a  dismal  place  those  people 
must  make  of  it  who  fill  their  hearts  with  the  sour- 
ness out  of  life.  Not  to  take  happiness  in  this 
world,  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  drive  yourself  to  hate 
the  God  that  made  it.  Take  happiness — that's  what 
I  should  do — take  it  all,  all  you  can  get,  and  then 
your  heart'll  make  a  heaven  worth  striving  for." 

And  there  was  she  making  a  hell  for  herself  yet 
finding  what  heaven  she  could  in  the  desire  for  his 
attainment. 

John  looked  at  her  with  the  slant  of  his  eyes. 
Suddenly  he  had  acquired  vision — the  vision  that 
had  come  to  him  that  night  when  she  left  him  in 
Fetter  Lane.  He  saw  that  laughter  on  her  lips 
and  came  to  understanding  of  the  absence  of  it  in 
her  eyes. 

The  whole  fretted  maze  of  life  closed  in  about 
him  then  when  he  realized  that  whatever  way  you 
turn,  pain  is  the  accompaniment  of  pleasure,  sorrow 
the  complement  of  joy.  It  seemed  he  was  driven 
to  his  wits'  end.  He  dared  not  look  at  her  face 
again.  He  loved — nothing  could  shake  that  knowl- 
edge, nothing  lessen  it,  nothing  alter  the  pulses  of 
his  heart.  Indeed  the  more  he  sensed  the  pain  she 
had  with  every  word  she  spoke  beside  him,  the  more 
he  knew  how  deep  his  love  had  gone,  while  at  the 
same  time  the  less  he  could  bear  the  suffering  he 
brought. 

Love  had  cleansed  his  eyes.  It  had  spread  his 
vision.  Now  love  was  chastizing  him  with  every 
word  she  uttered  and  all  the  pain  of  every  swing 
of  the  lash  was  a  thing  that  hurt  and  bit  deep  into 


The  Release  197 

his  soul  but  which  he  would  not  have  avoided  for 
all  the  ease  and  all  the  content  the  world  could 
offer  him. 

As  they  came  down  the  Tottenham  Court  Road, 
he  pointed  out  a  'bus  that  would  take  her  home. 
She  bent  her  head,  well  understanding  all  that  little 
service  meant  from  him. 

One  instant  then  she  raised  her  eyes  and  looked 
directly  in  his  face. 

"You're  going  to  be  happy  one  day,  John,"  she 
said.  "All  these  difficulties  are  going  to  be  pushed 
away.  They'll  come — the  long,  quiet  days — I'm 
sure  love  brings  them — I'm  sure  they'll  come  to 
you.  And  supposing  they  never  should — well — 7011 
have  loved,  haven't  you?  Do  you  think  I  don't 
know  it  was  love  of  her  that  brought  yoa  out  there 
to  me  to-day?" 

That  she  said — the  last  words  quicker  tban  the 
first,  as  though  she  must  speed  their  parting  from 
her  lips  before  tears  reached  them.  Witk  a  smile 
and  a  wave  of  her  hand  then,  she  had  jumped  on 
her  'bus  and  was  gone. 

John  stood  there  on  the  pavement,  watching  ker 
out  of  sight  and  over  and  over  again  as  the  carts 
and  'buses  crossed  and  hid  her  from  his  view,  ke 
kept  saying  to  himself: 

"How  quickly  life  swallows  you  up." 


Chapter  XXVIII:  A  Matter  of  Honesty 

IN  getting  married  at  a  Registry  Office — which 
for  all  the  world  is  like  going  into  a  second- 
hand clothier's  shop  and  purchasing  a  brand 
new  suit,  for  when  you  come  out  you  scarcely  know 
yourself  and  expect  every  second  person  to  stare 
at  you  in  the  street — in  getting  married  at  one  of 
these  places,  it  is  necessary  to  have  witnesses. 

You  may  call  one  of  them  the  best  man  if  you 
like.  You  may  call  both  of  them  the  best  man  and 
leave  them  to  fight  out  afterwards  their  rights  to 
the  grammatical  comparison.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence. All  they  have  to  do  is  to  sign  their  names. 

Another  matter  to  your  advantage,  saving  time, 
is  that  there  is  no — giving  away.  In  this,  it  is  like 
all  other  affairs  of  business  in  which  you  have  ever 
found  yourself  concerned. 

When  in  church,  for  example,  the  priest  says: 
"With  silver  and  gold  I  thee  wed,"  there  is  always 
that  awkward  moment  when  you  fumble  for  the 
half-sovereign  which  is  the  largest  piece  of  gold 
you  can  afford  and  for  the  crown  which  is  the 
largest  piece  of  silver  you  can  get,  for  there  are 
holes  in  the  trouser  pockets  of  even  wedding  gar- 
ments. What  is  more,  only  one  possessed  of  the 
dignity  of  poverty  can  ever  afford  to  ask  for  that 

198 


A  Matter  of  Honesty  199 

money  back  again  once  he  is  outside  the  church,  in 
order  to  pay  for  the  wedding  breakfast. 

In  a  Registry  Office  you  are  saved  all  such  an- 
noyances as  these.  It  is  a  plain  and  straightforward 
matter  of  business  between  the  eager  party  longing 
to  buy  and  the  indifferent  party  prepared  to  sell. 
Once  you  have  secured  the  witnesses  to  your  trans- 
actions, you  cannot  go  wrong,  unless  you  have  lost 
the  ring,  when  it  is  not  so  much  the  law  as  the 
woman  who  is  particular  about  that. 

From  what  quarter,  however,  wa$  John  to  secure 
his  witnesses  without  blazoning  the  fact  of  his 
wedding  to  the  four  corners  of  Fetter  Lane — which, 
if  you  know  the  locality,  you  will  realize  would 
mean  a  climbing  up  to  the  house  tops? 

In  this  quandary,  he  was  thinking  of  Jill  and  not 
of  himself  at  all.  It  would  be  a  proud  enough  mo- 
ment for  him.  But  there  was  a  sensation  sometimes, 
not  so  much  in  his  bones  as  in  the  epigastrium,  that 
she  would  feel,  and  perhaps  deeply,  the  contrast 
between  those  rooms  above  Mrs.  Meakin's  shop 
and  that  mansion  of  his  imagination  in  Prince  of 
Wales's  Terrace. 

For  what  did  he  know  of  Jill  ?  Nothing  but  what 
his  mind  had  conjured  out  of  the  persistent  sense 
of  beauty  with  which  he  lived.  Of  her  encounter 
with  her  parents,  she  had  given  him  no  relation  but 
their  disapproval.  From  her  own  lips  he  had  heard 
no  word  of  that  realization  of  madness  to  which 
she  had  come  and  which  had  held  its  way  with  her 
until  their  meeting  and  the  music  of  the  pipes  he 
had  played  in  the  Zoological  Gardens. 


2OO      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

One  revelation  only  he  had  had  of  her — the  sight 
of  Mr.  Skipwith  as  he  passed  through  the  crowd 
to  see  the  human  exhibits  in  their  cage.  She  had 
once  been  prepared  to  marry  that  man  in  the  bowler 
hat  with  the  stubbly  gray  beard.  She  had  been  pre- 
pared to  marry  him  after  she  had  lain  in  John's 
arms,  had  felt  his  kisses  on  her  lips  and  known  that 
love  was  the  truth  of  everything  the  world  could 
ever  hold. 

It  might  have  been  his  arms,  or  those  of  any 
other  man's.  It  mattered  not  the  curse  of  a  tinker 
whose  kisses  they  had  been.  What  had  mattered, 
was  that  it  was  love,  the  absorbing  passion  of  it, 
and  for  the  sake  of  her  duty  to  the  god  of  appear- 
ances, she  had  been  ready  to  set  it  aside. 

No  doubt,  as  she  had  told  him,  she  was  to  marry 
a  white  man.  His  heart  was  in  the  right  place. 
She  felt  the  deepest  respect  for  him.  But  white- 
ness or  blackness,  good  or  evil,  these  as  you,  if  you 
have  cared,  well  know,  have  nothing  to  do  with 
lore. 

Love  makes  its  own  good.  The  virtue  to  one 
in  another  where  there  is  no  love,  is  like  a  plant 
forced  in  a  hot-house.  There  is  something  exotic 
about  it;  something  bloodless  and  unreal.  The  sun 
is  the  well-spring  of  life  and  every  flower  that 
blooms  in  its  warmth  has  the  scent  of  the  sun  in 
its  petals.  Virtue  without  love  is  a  flower  out  of 
season,  and  scentless  in  the  nostrils  of  God. 

With  this  revelation  in  his  mind,  John  had  a  fear 
tn  his  heart  no  words  could  have  given  substance 
to.  In  addition  that  sensation  in  his  stomach — 


A  Matter  of  Honesty  201 

and  coming  from  that  quarter  never  to  be  regarded 
with  real  respect — sometimes  suggested  to  him  he 
was  behaving  like  a  cad. 

Would  it  be  the  more  honest  thing,  or  merely 
mock  heroics,  to  give  her  up;  to  tell  her  that  life, 
with  all  the  wonder  it  had  for  him  in  that  en- 
vironment was  yet  not  good  enough  for  her? 

These  were  questions  that  assailed  him  out  of 
the  reality  of  his  new  world.  For  there  were 
moments,  as  when  the  hawkers  were  coming  down 
from  Covent  Gardens  in  the  early  morning,  or  when 
he  had  to  say  "Good-day"  to  Mrs.  Morrell  on  the 
stairs — Mrs.  Morrell  who  did  spit  on  the  ground 
and  therefore  was  not  recognized  in  the  street — 
such  moments  when  he  wondered  whether  he  had 
willfully  deceived  Jill  as  to  the  conditions  of  life 
she  would  have  to  make  her  own. 


Chapter    XXIX:      Births,    Deaths    and 
Marriages 

TO  save  Jill  from  any  discomfort  she  might 
feel  in  the  event  of  the  neighborhood  being 
aware  of  their  wedding,  it  was  essential  for 
John  to  obtain  witnesses  who  had  no  business  with 
the  life  of  Fetter  Lane. 

For  marriage  in  that  part  of  the  world  is  a  con- 
siderable affair.  A  birth  is  nothing.  For  sheer 
interest,  death  surpasses  it  in  all  qualities  of  attrac- 
tion. With  death  there  is  usually  evidence  of  some 
emotion,  but  with  a  birth — none;  unless  it  be  the 
disgust  of  the  father  upon  the  increase  of  his  re- 
sponsibilities. Seeing,  however,  that  he  cannot  well 
vent  his  anger  upon  his  wife  at  a  time  like  that, 
a  badly  cooked  dinner  any  day  is  better  than  a 
birth,  since  it  has  some  immediate  chance  of  leading 
to  a  row. 

Again,  a  birth  costs  anything  from  half-a-crown 
to  ten  and  six,  which  is  no  great  excitement  in  the 
way  of  expenditures.  For  being,  as  it  is,  the  civil- 
ized equivalent  of  the  expression  of  force,  the 
spending  of  money  is  no  less  exciting  to  those  who 
spend  it  than  to  those  who  look  on.  The  sight  of 
a  millionaire  writing  a  check  for  five  thousand 

202 


Births,  Deaths  and  Marriages     203 

pounds  is  as  thrilling  now  as  was  a  pitched  battle 
in  the  age  of  stone. 

A  birth  then,  with  its  utmost  capital  outlay  of 
ten  and  six,  is  nothing.  But  a  funeral,  well,  there 
are  vehicles  actually  stopping  at  the  door.  You  can 
look  out  of  your  own  window,  which  costs  you 
nothing,  and  calculate  how  much  they  have  spent 
on  the  coffin  and  the  hearse. 

There  may  be  flowers  and  you  may  know  the 
green-grocer's  shop  that  supplied  them.  At  some- 
time or  another  in  the  proceedings,  there  is  a  feast. 
Every  mourner  wears  a  garment  for  the  occasion 
which  is  almost  as  rich  a  food  for  speculation  as 
the  washing  you  see  hanging  on  the  line  in  your 
next-door-neighbor's  yard.  And  all  these  things 
cost  money;  they  are  all  civilized  expressions  of  the 
expenditure  of  brute  force  and  dynamic  energy. 

These  are  the  attractions  about  a  funeral  which 
you  do  not  get  down  your  street  when  yet  another 
child  comes  stumbling  down  the  well-worn  path  on 
to  the  dusty  highway. 

But  a  wedding!  That  beats  them  all.  At  a 
wedding  you  can  resort  to  an  exhibition  of  brute 
force  yourself.  You  can  throw  things.  The  parties 
concerned  are  in  that  state  of  mind  when  they  will 
submit  to  it.  The  youngest  child  in  the  neighbor- 
hood can  participate  in  a  wedding. 

What  the  bride  wears,  where  she  got  the  stuff 
and  how  she  made  it  up  with  the  sewing  machine 
she  borrowed,  to  you,  looking  out  of  your  window, 
there  is  something  absorbing  in  all  that.  You  may 
have  lent  her  the  machine.  You  may  have  lent 


204      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

her  the  machine  and  she  has  not  asked  you  to  the 
wedding.  Consider  the  liberty  that  gives  you  to 
be  generous  with  a  piece  of  your  mind! 

As  well  as  all  this,  there  is  every  bit  of  scandal, 
every  bit  of  gossip,  every  bit  of  romance  that  can 
be  discussed  while  they  are  squeezing — six  of  them 
under  a  shower  of  confetti — into  a  four-wheeled  cab. 

There  will  be  more  than  one  in  the  street  who 
will  know  where  the  bridegroom  hired  his  suit  of 
clothes  for  the  occasion.  There  will  be  glimpses 
of  the  bride's  going  and  of  her  coming  back;  endless 
speculations  as  to  how  she  will  like  it  now  she  has 
got  him;  how  hard  she  did  try  to  get  him,  or  how 
hard  he  did  try  to  get  her;  or  yet  again  how  quick 
they  went  and  did  it  and  how  it  will  all  turn  out. 

There  will  be  sighs  from  the  girls  who  are  not 
married  and  doubtless  giggles  from  the  women  who 
are.  But  everybody  will  be  laughing,  which  is  one 
advantage  a  wedding  has  over  a  funeral. 

And  last  of  all,  there  is  that  indefinable  feeling 
of  curiosity  in  the  breast  of  every  woman  who  looks 
on.  It  is  mostly  women  who  do  it.  Eve  began  it. 
As  the  Great  Mr.  Chesterton  said:  "The  apple 
which  Eve  ate  in  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  an  orange 
and  the  peel  has  been  lying  about  ever  since," 
which,  whatever  the  little  bailiff  may  have  thought 
of  it,  was  an  undying  truth. 

And  every  time  there  is  a  wedding  in  your  street, 
you  may  be  sure  some  man  has  slipped  up  somehow, 
when,  if  you  have  no  curiosity  to  look  into  the  four- 
wheeled  cab  and  see  why,  a  petticoat  ill-becomes 
you. 


Births,  Deaths  and  Marriages    205 

But  perhaps  down  your  street,  they  don't  drive 
to  the  church  in  a  four-wheeled  cab,  in  which  case 
these  observations  are  entirely  wasted  upon  you. 

They  were  at  least  the  thoughts  passing  through 
John's  mind  when  for  Jill's  sake  he  determined  that 
witnesses  must  be  secured  whom  he  could  trust  not 
to  give  the  secret  away. 


Chapter  XXX:    Selecting  a  Witness 

IT  was  well  and  easy  enough  to  say  there  must 
be  witnesses  who  had  no  business  with  the 
lire  of  Fetter  Lane;  but  where  were  they  to 
be  found? 

The  name  of  Mi.;  Bealby,  the  tailor  up  the  street, 
was  one  of  the  first  to  present  itself  for  suggestion. 
John  owed  him  three  pounds,  fourteen  and  seven- 
pence.  In  respect  of  that  and  regarding  future 
custom — for  he  always  signed  his  letters — "Solicit- 
ing further  favors.  Yours  obediently,"  he  might  be 
persuaded  to  keep  the  secret.  Suddenly  then,  John 
remembered  he  was  married. 

Now  a  married  man  may  have  the  best  heart  and 
the  finest  intentions  in  the  world.  He  has,  more- 
over, a  conscience,  but  as  has  been  written  in  respect 
of  him  and  the  application  might  well  be  universal: 
"What  is  a  conscience  to  a  wife?" 

It  is  no  good  imparting  a  secret  to  a  married 
man  and  putting  it  to  his  conscience  not  to  speak 
of  it  to  another  soul.  There  is  his  wife  to  reckon 
with  and  though  he  may  tell  her  nothing,  she  will 
manage  nevertheless  to  get  it  out  of  him. 

"You've  got  your  own  ideas  of  what  you  ought 
to  do,"  says  she.  "I  don't  want  to  influence  you 
one  way  or  another.  I  wouldn't  influence  you  for 

206 


Selecting  a  Witness  207 

the  world,  but  I  sha'n't  speak  to  you  again  if  you 
don't  tell  me." 

Where  is  the  power  of  conscience  to  a  force  like 
that?  Unless  it  may  happen  her  silence  is  to  be 
desired,  in  which  case  no  woman  in  her  senses  would 
make  the  threat. 

John  ruled  out  Mr.  Bealby  and,  failing  him,  there 
was  not  one  in  Fetter  Lane  in  whom  he  believed 
he  could  trust.  Mrs.  Morrell,  Mrs.  Brown,  they 
were  not  to  be  considered.  Women,  both  of  them 
and  neither  of  them  possessing  those  essential 
qualities  of  ladyship. 

But  Fate  has  a  way  of  her  own  of  coming  to  the 
assistance  of  those  in  trouble. 

Coming  in  from  his  bedroom  one  morning  to 
breakfast,  he  found  two  letters  leaning  up  against 
the  toast-rack,  the  one  Jill  posted  to  him  every 
night  by  connivance  with  the  maid  at  Prince  of 
Wales's  Terrace — the  other  in  a  writing  that  seemed 
familiar.  He  tried  to  place  it  but  with  no  success. 

Whatever  letters  there  were,  Jill's  remained  to 
the  last,  till  that  cigarette  was  lit  with  the  last  cup 
of  tea  and  the  day  could  properly  be  said  to  be 
begun.  He  opened  the  other  as  he  sat  down  and 
read: 

DEAR  MR.  GREY: 

It  is  not  given  to  anyone  to  aver  that  he  could  not  have  done 
better — for  if  my  efforts  to  rehabilitate  myself  have  as  yet  been 
abortive  it  was  not  through  want  of  energy  but  rather  through 
lack  of  judgment.  I  have  all  along,  as  you  know,  nurtured 
within  me,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  a^spirit  of  optimism,  to 
buoy  myself  in  a  wretched  existence  all  the  more  embittered  by 
success  just  without  my  grasp — like  Tantalus,  for  the  want  of  a 
few  more  links. 


208      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

What  Tantalus  might  have  done  with  a  few  more 
links  in  his  pool  of  water  was  not  easily  to  be 
understood.  John  ran  his  fingers  through  his  hair, 
but  read  on: 

Your  past  kindness  and  the  faith  you  seemed  to  repose  in 
me — have  I  as  yet  justified?  Nevertheless  between  me — but 
between  him  and  what  the  context  never  divulged — I  have 
good  reasons  for  hoping,  if  I  can  but  tide  over  my  present 
embarrassment. 

Courage  here  in  this  paragraph  seemed  to  have 
forsaken  him.  In  a  moment  of  trepidation,  he 
shrank  behind  a  full  stop  and  had  to  begin  a  fresh 
paragraph  before  he  could  come  out  again  into  the 
open.  This  time  it  was  the  gist  of  his  letter  as 
though  further  beating  about  the  bush  was  for 
cowards  but  not  for  him: 

If  you  would  send  me  to  Kings  Cross  Rowton  House  the  sum 
of  two  and  six,  it  would  greatly  help  me.  This  is  positively  the 
last  time  I  trouble  you.  You  will  be  glad  to  hear  I  have  at  last 
a  good  violin.  I  shall  be  leaving  Rowton  House  as  soon  as  I 
can  get  a  new  set  of  strings — hence  why  the  2/6  would  be  of 
great  help  to  me. 

With  kind  regards  to  your  father  and  mother  who,  though  I 
have  never  met  them,  are  known  to  me  by  your  accounts  of 
them. 

And  wishing  you  and  yours 
all  health 

and  prosperity 

Believe  me 

Yours  sincerely, 

MATTEO  ALLIEVI. 

If  ever  Fate  had  the  appearance  of  playing  into 
a  man's  hand,  it  was  when  the  postman  brought 
this  letter  to  John  that  morning.  For  who  better 
than  this  itinerant  violinist  for  a  witness  who,  if 


Selecting  a  Witness  209 

he  were  in  Fetter  Lane  one  day,  was  in  Netting 
Hill  the  next  and  the  day  after,  as  likely  as  not 
might  be  in  jail,  which  is  a  safe  place  for  any 
gossip. 

At  a  party  given  in  an  artist's  studio  two  years 
before,  John  had  met  him.  To  the  accompaniment 
on  a  cottage  piano,  sadly  out  of  tune,  he  had  played 
Chopin's  Preludes  from  the  triple  clef  on  the 
piano  copy.  Later  on  in  the  evening,  with  an  odor 
of  garlic  and  in  a  corner,  beneath  his  breath  he 
had  talked  to  John  about  his  soul.  Still  later,  as 
they  walked  home  together,  he  had  borrowed  half- 
a-crown. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  acquaintance, 
punctuated  with  the  loans  of  that  invariable  sum  of 
money.  It  was  never  more.  It  was  never  less. 

After  each  loan,  a  period  of  time  would  elapse — 
a  kind  of  healing  interval — when  he  calculated  the 
sore  of  parting  with  that  half-a-crown  would  gradu- 
ally have  closed  up  and  the  scar  it  left  be  practically 
forgotten. 

During  those  intervals,  Matteo  Allievi  would  be 
swallowed  up  in  the  affairs  of  a  big  world.  After 
each  of  the  first  few  of  these  occasions,  John 
thought  he  had  seen  the  last  of  him.  But  when  two 
months  or  so  had  gone  by,  back  he  would  come 
again,  sometimes  as  now  in  the  form  of  a  letter; 
at  others  in  person  himself. 

When  it  was  that  he  returned  in  person,  the 
half-a-crown  last  lent  would  never  be  mentioned  nor, 
for  two  days  at  least,  was  word  uttered  of  the 
half-crown  to  come. 


2io      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

For  two  whole  days,  he  was  the  most  enlivening 
of  companions,  wanting  nothing  in  the  world  so  much 
as  to  talk  about  his  own  soul.  And  it  was  such  an 
odd  soul,  with  such  queer  moralities  attached  to  it 
— like  a  woman  with  a  chatelaine  of  trumpery 
trinkets — that  John  was  vastly  entertained  in  listen- 
ing to  him. 

But  after  those  first  two  days  of  his  constant  com- 
panionship, Matteo's  manner  of  overwhelming  self- 
confidence  would  resolve  itself  into  one  of  inter- 
mittent awkwardness  and  much  pre-occupation.  He 
seemed  always  to  be  awaiting  an  opportunity  which, 
when  once  John  recognized  the  symptoms,  was  con- 
spicuously slow  to  arise.  It  amounted  to  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  game  to  John  to  see  how 
long  he  would  ward  off  the  inevitable  allusion  to 
that  half-crown. 

Once  he  succeeded  for  a  full  twenty-four  hours, 
when  the  exasperated  violinist  was  so  driven  to  it 
that  he  burst  into  tears.  It  needs  a  man  with  a 
chatelaine  of  moralities  attached  to  his  soul,  to  speak 
of  half-a-crown  in  the  same  breath  with  salvation 
and  the  only  manner  in  which  this  can  be  done  is 
with  a  flood  of  tears  to  the  eyes. 

He  always  secured  his  half-crown  in  the  end — 
always  secured  it,  that  is  to  say,  when  half-a-crown 
was  to  be  had.  When  there  was  not  so  much  as 
twopence  in  John's  pocket  Allievi's  expression  of 
incredulity,  mingled  with  the  most  tragic  concern, 
was  so  comical  that  John  was  reduced  to  a  convul- 
sion of  laughter  in  the  midst  of  his  own  poverty. 

It  was   so  palpable   how   Matteo   regarded  the 


Selecting  a  Witness  21 1 

matter.  There  were  two  good  days  wasted.  They 
might  have  been  better  employed.  For  John  was 
not  the  only  one  in  the  world  from  whom  a  periodic 
visit  yielded  this  invariable  sum  of  money.  There 
were  a  whole  number  of  them,  a  regular  clientele 
it  had  no  doubt  taken  years  of  careful  labor  to 
establish.  Sufficient,  John  strongly  suspected,  to 
provide  five  shillings  a  week  and  all  the  year  round. 

This  writing  of  a  letter  was  generally  to  make 
up  for  lost  time  when  he  had  drawn  a  blank.  While 
he  received  one  by  post,  he  could  be  prospecting 
in  person  at  another  source. 

But  this  time,  John  determined  Matteo  should 
earn  his  half-crown.  For  here,  at  least,  was  one 
who  would  prove  a  secret  and  reliable  witness  in 
any  registry  office.  Before  even  opening  Jill's 
letter,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  to  Rowton  House, 
Kings  Cross,  asking  Matteo  Allievi  to  come  and 
see  him. 

"Come  and  see  me  as  soon  as  you  receive  this," 
he  wrote.  "I  want  to  discuss  a  little  matter," 
which,  when  you  consider  there  was  no  enclosure 
of  half-a-crown,  was  enough  to  bring  any  man  of 
fertile  imagination  from  the  remotest  Rowton  House 
in  the  Metropolis. 

This  was  one  witness  as  good  as  secured.  Then, 
by  the  time  he  had  read  Jill's  letter  and  finished 
his  last  cup  of  tea,  Fate  flung  him  another,  and  what 
is  more  without  one  penny  charge  for  her  services. 

It  was  Friday  and  the  clarionet  Player  down  the 
street  struck  up  with  "Sally  in  our  Alley." 

John  leapt  to  his  feet. 


212      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

There  is  a  quality  of  inspiration  and  impulse 
which  cannot  be  explained.  You  have  it,  or  you 
have  it  not. 

Who,  without  inspiration,  spurred  by  impulse, 
would  have  thought  of  a  pauper  from  Rowton 
House  and  a  ballad-monger  out  of  the  streets,  as 
witnesses  for  the  most  solemn  undertaking  to  which 
a  man  can  attach  his  signature? 

Common  sense  and  the  propriety  of  reason,  there 
is  but  small  doubt  of  it,  come  between  us  and  half 
the  things  in  this  world.  We  sacrifice  happiness  to 
get  on  in  life,  because  it  is  superlatively  unreason- 
able not  to  get  on  if  one  can;  whereas  to  continue 
in  a  state  of  happiness  would  often  necessitate  our 
flinging  expediency  to  the  winds. 

There  is  more  than  one  man  or  woman  in  the 
world  who  would  put  off  their  wedding  because 
Lord  Tom  Noddy  was  unavoidably  prevented  from 
being  best  man  at  the  ceremony. 

It  is  the  cry  of  most  of  us  to  improve  our  posi- 
tions, but  seldom  ourselves.  Public  opinion  stands 
sentry  at  the  gates  of  expediency,  crying:  "Halt! 
Who  goes  there?"  "Friend,"  we  say.  "Advance 
friend  and  give  the  countersign,"  is  the  reply, 
whereupon  we  advance  and  whisper  the  words:  "I 
want  to  get  on." 

It  is  best  to  be  whispered,  that  countersign. 
During  those  moments  in  life — and  they  are  ever- 
recurrent — when  we  slip  through  the  gates  of  ex- 
pediency, there  is  no  knowing  who  might  be  near 
to  hear  our  secret.  So  we  creep  past  to  where  each 
one  in  the  crowd  we  see  within,  appears  to  be  striv- 


Selecting  a  Witness  213 

ing  for  the  good  of  his  own  soul  and  the  benefit 
of  the  State.  It  is  only  when  we  find  a  world  in 
chaos  that  we  realize  how  false  that  appearance 
has  been. 

Thus  it  is  but  one,  having  true  sense  of  the  dig- 
nity of  poverty  and  more  knowledge  of  the  need  in 
his  heart  than  the  requirements  of  his  position  in 
the  world,  who  could  think  of  securing  a  pauper 
from  Rowton  House  to  be  witness  to  his  wedding, 
or  hail  a  ballad-monger  from  the  street  to  keep  him 
company. 

John  leapt  to  his  feet.  In  a  moment  he  had  flung 
open  the  window  and  thrown  a  penny  down  into  the 
street  below. 


Chapter   XXXI:    A  Chapter  for   Those 
Who  Loiter 

IN  a  free  life,  where  you  breathe  the  air  of 
liberty  as  you  would  take  into  your  lungs  the 
first  tingling  warmth  of  a  spring  breeze,  ad- 
visability is  not  one  of  the  considerations. 

The  need — that  is  all — the  need  is  the  voice  in 
you. 

Wherefore,  you  ask  a  girl  to  marry  you  as  you 
would  stop  a  runaway  horse — then  and  there — be- 
cause you  must.  There  is  no  time  to  debate  about 
it.  Think  once  and  you  will  think  twice,  and  twice- 
thinking,  you  will  as  likely  as  not  lose  your  best 
chance  of  happiness  in  the  world,  nor  will  you  ever 
be  the  hero  you  thought  you  were. 

For  there  is  no  mistaking  a  runaway  horse  when 
you  see  him  careering  down  the  street.  Just  one 
moment  there  is  when  you  can  stop  him  and  the 
next  he  is  gone.  It  is  no  good  debating  whether  it 
is  your  job  to  stop  him  or  that  of  the  policeman 
standing  at  the  corner  of  the  street. 

If  you  want  to  feel  a  little  better  in  your  bones 
than  you  did  two  minutes  before;  if  you  really  want 
to  be  that  brave  fellow  so  fondly  and  so  often  you 
think  you  are,  it  is  off  the  pavement  like  a  flash 

214 


A  Chapter  for  Those  Who  Loiter  215 

you  must  go  and  be  damned  to  the  chances  of  a  split 
skull  or  a  broken  limb. 

And  with  the  girl  you  want  to  marry,  it  is  much 
the  same.  There  is  as  little  mistaking  her.  She 
comes  down  your  street  and  into  the  vision  of  your 
heart  with  the  same  mad  riot  of  speed. 

It  is  no  good  considering  whether  she  will  help 
you  to  get  on  in  life;  whether  her  people  are  quite 
to  be  desired  as  relations  or  what  advantages  Jie 
will  bring  you  with  your  marriage.  You  are  only 
certain  of  the  conditions  of  one  life  and  the  emotion 
you  have  about  her  in  that  wonderful  moment  is 
the  best  of  them  all.  Off  you  must  go  then,  like 
a  flash  and  be  damned  to  the  chances  of  a  residence 
in  Hyde  Park  Gate,  or  an  income  of  four  thousand 
a  year. 

With  such  an  impulse,  John  flung  open  the  win- 
dow; with  such  an  impulse,  he  hurled  his  penny 
down  into  the  street  below. 

When  the  clarionet  player  looked  up  with  his 
gratitude  from  its  recovery  in  the  gutter,  John  sig- 
naled to  him  to  come  up  stairs. 


Chapter  XXXII:    Introducing  a  Philos- 
opher 

HE  came  timidly  into  the  room,  holding  his 
hat  and  his  clarionet  in  one  hand  while 
he  pushed  his  hair  off  his  forehead  with 
the  other. 

John  closed  the  door  after  him.  This  was  the 
man  who  had  made  a  fine  distinction  between  the 
playing  of  his  ballads  on  his  instrument  and  the 
ceaseless  performance  of  them  in  his  head.  The 
incessant  and  endless  occupation  of  the  latter  was 
that  labor  by  which  he  had  said  he  earned  his  wage. 

Common  sense  at  least  might  be  expected  of  one 
with  so  comprehensive  a  grasp  of  a  fine  distinction. 
John  pushed  out  his  best  chair  and  asked  him  to 
sit  down. 

"Look  here,"  said  he,  "I've  got  a  favor  to  ask 
you,"  and  he  could  see  the  horny  fingers  straying 
over  the  keys  of  his  instrument,  pressing  them  down 
in  a  variety  of  sequences  representing  "Sally  in  our 
Alley,"  "Come  Lassies  and  Lads,"  "The  Saucy 
Arethusa,"  whichever  indeed  he  happened  at  the 
moment  to  be  playing  in  his  mind. 

"I'll  do  anything  I  can,  sir,"  said  he,  implying 
that  with  nothing  more  than  a  clarionet,  there  is 

216 


Introducing  a  Philosopher        217 

not  much  in  the  world  a  man  can  do  which  is  of 
real  service  to  anyone. 

"Well,  then,  first  of  all,"  began  John,  "have  you 
got  a  best  suit  of  clothes?" 

The  question  was  so  unexpected  that  for  the 
moment  his  fingers  were  arrested  in  their  playing 
on  those  silent  keys.  It  might  almost  have  been 
supposed  that  for  that  instant  John  had  knocked 
every  tune  out  of  his  head. 

"I've  got  a  pair  of  trousers,  sir,"  he  replied  at 
last.  "I've  got  a  pair  of  trousers  I  puts  on  when 
my  old  woman's  sewin'  a  patch  in  these.  I  wear 
'em  Sundays  sometimes,  with  a  black  coat  one  o' 
them  lawyer  gentlemen  gave  me  to  go  up  into  Hoi- 
born  when  I  was  playing  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields." 

There  was  an  ingenuous  modesty  about  this  that 
would  have  given  pleasure  to  the  severest  critic  of 
human  nature.  He  had  no  false  ideas  about  him- 
self as  a  performer  on  the  clarionet. 

"Do  you  often  get  paid  like  that?"  asked  John. 

"What — with  a  coat  or  something  like  that,  sir?" 

"No— no — I  mean  paid  to  get  out  of  hearing? 
Paid,  when  you're  in  Lincoln's  Inn  to  play  in 
Holborn?" 

He  leant  forward  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees 
and  stared  a  moment  at  the  carpet.  It  was  plain 
now  that  he  was  having  a  complete  rest. 

"Well — I  took  count  once,  sir,"  he  said  presently, 
and  he  spoke  rather  in  the  tone  of  one  who  would 
betray  the  deepest  secret  of  his  heart,  than  as  one 
who  would  deceive  another  as  to  the  truth  of  his 
nature.  "I  took  count  once  and  I  reckoned — over 


218      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

a  time  of  four  weeks  it  was — I  reckoned  that  not 
quite  half  the  money  I  made  was  from  those  ladies 
and  gentlemen  as  had  kind  hearts  and  the  other, 
that's  the  larger  amount  if  you  notice,  sir,  from  those 
as  wanted  me  to  move  on  into  the  next  street. 
That  was  over  four  weeks,  sir.  And  I  expect  it's 
much  the  same  all  the  year  round.  It's  an  inter- 
estin'  little  calculation  when  you  come  to  look  at  it 
like  that.  I've  often  thought  how  interestin'  it 


was." 


John  agreed.  It  was — intensely  interesting.  But 
the  calculation  was  more  of  the  man  himself  than 
ever  it  was  of  his  earnings. 

"Doesn't  it  hurt  your  feelings  at  all,"  John  in- 
quired, "when  they  ask  you — bribe  you  to  go  into 
the  next  street?" 

As  swiftly  as  he  had  thought  of  the  purpose  the 
ballad-monger  might  serve,  so  swiftly  in  this  sud- 
den interest  of  the  man,  it  had  gone  clean  out  of 
his  head. 

The  unexpected  presentation  of  a  new  point  of 
view  in  life  is  like  finding  a  piece  of  money  in  the 
street.  Sixpence  on  the  pavement  has  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  twenty  times  its  value  and  a  real  thought 
in  a  man's  head  would  make  John  dart  forward 
like  a  street  arab  to  be  the  first  to  pick  it  up. 

"Doesn't  it  hurt  your  feelings  a^t  all?"  John  re- 
peated. 

"Well — no,  sir.  I  can't  say  that  it  does.  If  it 
really  hurt  my  feelings — -as  you  put  it — I  fancy  I 
shouldn't  take  the  money.  What  you  might  call 
— pride,  sir — that  'ud  come  between  me  and  the 


Introducing  a  Philosopher       219 

newest  pair  of  trousers  in  the  world.  I  shouldn't 
take  'em.  I  should  just  go  away." 

"But  you  do  take  'em?  You  take  the  money, 
too?" 

"Yes— I  do,  sir." 

"Well— why?" 

He  coughed  behind  his  hand.  The  man  had 
manners,  but  by  no  means  was  he  ostentatious  about 
them.  He  coughed  behind  his  hand  as  if  out  of 
respect  for  his  surroundings.  Having  done  this, 
somewhat  as  one  who  felt  he  owed  a  species  of 
apology  for  talking  about  the  affairs  of  the  gutter 
in  a  room  where  there  was  evidence  of  a  sense  of 
taste  beyond  his  comprehension,  he  proceeded  to 
expound  his  philosophy. 


Chapter  XXXIII:     Life's    Little    Awk- 
wardnesses 

WELL— it's  this  way,  sir,"  he  began.  "Our 
next-door  neighbor  down  at  Walham 
Green  has  a  parrot.  It's  a  beastly  bird 
that  parrot  is.  It's  got  a  whistle  like  a  train  in 
a  fog  and  a  noise  in  its  throat  it  makes  like  a  sheep 
with  a  'acking  cough  comin'  on  lambin'  time." 

John  frowned  prodigiously  from  want  of  under- 
Standing.  What  in  the  name  of  heaven  had  a  parrot 
got  to  do  with  it?  But  the  ballad-monger,  sure  of 
his  point  of  view,  continued  without  a  sign  of  per- 
turbation at  the  sight  of  John's  frown. 

"Then  I  have  a  sister,  livin'  down  in  Coventry," 
he  went  on,  "and  next  door  to  her — I  know,  be- 
cause me  and  the  old  woman  paid  her  a  visit  last 
Christmas — next  door  to  her  there's  a  man  what 
has  asthma.  He's  got  it  bad  that  poor  chap  and, 
bein'  run  up  one  brick  thick — the  houses  I  mean 
like  what  my  sister  lives  in — you  can  hear  every 
noise  he  makes.  Some  nights  it's  somethin'  chronic, 
that  chap  with  asthma.  You  can  hear  him  going  on 
and  on  till  he  might  throttle  for  all  you  care,  yet 
he's  a  decent  enough  chap  in  himself.  That's  an- 
other case.  Then  there's  my  wife,  sir.  She  snores 
_Well " 


22C 


Life's  Little  Awkwardnesses      221 

He  looked  all  round  the  room  for  simile.  He 
glanced  at  the  ceiling.  He  cast  his  eyes  down  on 
the  floor.  But  neither  the  carpet  nor  the  ceiling 
were  of  any  use  to  him;  he  had  to  resort  to  his  own 
powers  of  imagination. 

"It's  one  of  those  snores,"  he  continued,  "that 
begins  with  a  little  one,  if  I  make  my  meaning  clear. 
A  little  one  it  begins  with  and  after  about  six  o' 
them  it  gets  louder  and  longer.  You'd  think  she 
was  going  to  burst  or  swallow  the  bed-clothes  when 
she  gets  to  her  top  note.  Lions  roarin'  at  feedin' 
time  ain't  nothin'  to  it.  Then,  all  of  a  sudden, 
when  you'd  think  flesh  and  blood  couldn't  do  no 
worse,  there's  a  click  in  her  throat,  like  a  sort  of 
trap  door  goin'  and  it  all  falls  through  like  the 
demon  in  the  pantomime.  For  two  minutes  she's 
breathin'  like  a  child  o'  six.  Then  it  begins  all  over 
again." 

"But  what  the  devil,"  exclaimed  John  at  last. 
"What  the  devil  has  this  got  to  do  with  your  play- 
ing your  clarionet  in  the  next  street?" 

"I'm  comin'  to  that,"  said  the  ballad-monger  with 
an  assuring  confidence  in  his  voice.  "I'm  comin'  to 
that  all  right.  I've  just  been  tellin'  you  these  things 
because  that's  what  life  seems  like  in  some  ways  to 
me.  Here  we  are,  all  bundled  up  together — Tom 
and  Mary,  Dick  and  Kate — and  it  'ud  be  a  queer 
thing  if  we  all  hit  it  off  without  one  of  us  gettin' 
his  hair  rubbed  up  the  wrong  way.  The  better  off 
you  are  of  course  the  better  you  can  afford  to  avoid 
them — little  awkwardnesses.  If  you  can  afford  it, 
you  can  live  in  a  house  built  two  bricks  thick.  There 


222      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

are  some  as  can  afford  to  live  semi-detached.  There 
are  some — in  Park  Lane — has  their  houses  standin' 
by  themselves  where  there  ain't  any  side  of  them 
you  have  to  go  to  get  away  from  the  girl  next  door 
practising  the  pianner.  There  are  some  in  the 
country — oh,  my  lor'!  The  country!  No  hard 
pavements!  I'd  lose  six  coppers  in  the  grass  for 
every  one  I'd  pick  up  easy  in  a  London  gutter! 
There  are  some  in  the  country  as  have  houses  with 
gardens  all  round  'em!  Not  another  house  to  be 
seen,  even  wher.  the  leaves  is  off  the  trees!" 

"Still?"  persisted  John. 

"I'm  comin'  to  it  all  right,  sir.  You'll  see  my 
point  in  a  jiffy.  I've  thought  it  all  out,  rnind  you. 
We  all  have  somethin'  to  put  up  with,  the  worst 
and  the  best  of  us.  There  are  very  few  as  can 
avoid  all  the  worries  of  life,  and  those  as  can  have 
to  pay  for  it.  I  have  to  put  up  with  that  parrot 
next  door.  I  can't  afford  to  go  and  live  nowhere 
else.  My  sister  has  to  put  up  with  the  poor  chap 
as  has  got  asthma.  There's  my  wife — well — I 
couldn't  pay  her  to  go  into  the  next  street — not  even 
if  I  could  afford  it— could  I?" 

There  was  a  wistful  note  in  his  voice  as  he  put 
the  question.  You  realized  what  a  temptation  it 
would  be  to  him  to  make  the  bargain  if  the  money 
were  there  in  his  pocket. 

But  by  this  time  John  had  seen  his  point  of  view 
and  was  walking  round  and  round  his  room,  chuck- 
ling as  he  went. 

"So  you're  one  of  the  little  awkwardnesses  of 
life,"  he  chuckled  and  kept  on  chuckling  as  he 


Life's  Little  Awkwardnesses      223 

thought  of  first  one  and  then  another  of  these  in- 
evitable penances  that  existed  for  him  in  Fetter 
Lane. 

"Well,  sir,"  said  the  ballad-monger,  "that's  my 
way  of  lookin'  at  it  when  they  offer  me  sixpence  to 
go  into  the  next  street.  I'm  as  necessary  to  them 
as  a — as  a " 

"Corrective,"  suggested  John. 

"If  you  like  to  put  it  that  way,  sir.  Anyhow  I'm 
as  necessary  to  them  as  I  am  to  the  slavey  washin' 
the  doorstep  who  starts  hummin'  'Sally  in  our 
Alley'  to  make  her  work  seem  lighter." 

"And  do  you  ply  your  trade  consciously,  pur- 
posely as  a  corrective?"  inquired  John. 

"Not  every  day,  sir,  I  don't.  There's  Mondays, 
Wednesdays  and  Fridays  I  go  to  places  like  Fetter 
Lane  where  half  the  street  is  hummin'  as  I  go  along 
and  there's  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays  I  go  where 
they  send  the  servant  out  of  the  hall  door  and  ask 
me  to  go  clean  off  and  take  me  noise  with  me." 

"Which  is  the  most  lucrative?" 

"The  most ?  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,  but  I'm 

nearly  deaf  in  this  left  ear." 

"Which  pays  the  best?" 

"Ah — yes — I  can  hear  so  much  better  this  side. 
Tuesdays  and  Thursdays,  sir.  It's  an  odd  thing, 
but  that's  the  truth.  People'll  pay  more  to  get  rid 
of  a  nuisance  than  what  they  will  to  get  a  bit  of 
pleasure  out  of  life." 

"Then  why  don't  you  have  three  days  of  that?" 

He  shook  his  head.  With  a  protective  movement, 
he  picked  up  his  clarionet. 


224      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"I  like  my  Mondays,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays," 
he  said. 

Now  with  a  man  of  such  kidney,  who  has  this 
much  claim  to  the  true  functions  of  Art  that  he  will 
prefer  to  set  a  whole  street  humming  with  his  tunes, 
rather  than  be  well  paid  to  hold  his  peace  and  do 
nothing  for  a  living,  the  mere  whisper  of  romance 
is  sufficient  to  engage  his  sympathy. 

When  John  told  him  at  last  of  his  wedding,  he 
became  the  most  willing  conspirator  in  the  world. 

"I'll  get  my  wife,"  said  he,  "to  give  that  coat  a 
rub  with  a  damp  cloth  and  just  run  an  iron  over  it. 
That's  what  I'll  get  her  to  do." 


Chapter  XXXIV:      A   Revelation   in 
Atmosphere 

IT  was  an  invariable  custom  of  John's  to  go 
every  Monday  morning  to  the  British  Museum 
and  read  in  the  library.  Through  all  the 
period  of  their  friendship,  Amber  had  never  known 
him  to  fail  in  this  habit. 

He  called  it — his  library. 

"I've  got  that  in  my  library,"  he  would  say  to 
one  who  had  not  the  remotest  idea  where  he  lived. 
"I'll  look  it  up."  And  it  might  have  been  some- 
thing contained  in  a  volume  of  priceless  value. 

On  two  or  three  occasions,  forgetting  this  custom, 
Amber  had  called  at  his  rooms  in  Fetter  Lane  to 
find  them  empty.  Invariably,  then,  she  had  dis- 
covered him  in  his  library,  having  his  books  brought 
to  him  on  trolleys  by  his  library  attendants. 

There  is  no  need  to  possess  the  world.  With  a 
little  imagination,  you  can  appropriate  it  all,  sav- 
ing yourself  much  thereby  in  the  expense  of  up-keep. 

On  the  Monday  morning  following  her  release 
from  Holloway,  she  came  down  to  Fetter  Lane  with 
six  pounds  four  and  threepence  in  an  envelope 
gripped  in  her  hand. 

There  is  no  point  in  inquiring  where  she  got  it. 
225 


226      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It  would  be  impossible  to  say.  There  are  pawn- 
shops in  the  neighborhood  of  Hogarth  Road  as  well 
as  in  that  of  Fetter  Lane.  There  are  artists,  need- 
ing a  model,  who  are  well-enough  off  to  pay  a  couple 
of  weeks'  wages  in  advance.  You  need  to  find 
them.  There  is,  all  the  same,  a  vast  superfluity  of 
money  in  the  world  lying  in  idleness. 

The  climate  has  a  lot  to  do  with  it.  In  a  country 
where  you  see  the  sun  by  the  grace  of  God  rather 
than  by  the  habit  of  Nature,  a  rainy  day  is  a  tangible 
reality.  In  other  words,  all  joy  in  life  comes  from 
the  sun  and  without  a  sense  of  joy,  the  mind  in- 
stinctively sets  itself  out  to  provide  for  the  worst  of 
contingencies.  We  are  a  people  of  the  mist  and  so 
long  as  Civilization  depends  upon  the  men  with 
many  possessions,  we  shall  be  the  most  powerful 
country  in  the  world,  because  we  are  always — "put- 
ting a  little  bit  away" — as  the  song  has  it — "for 
a  rainy  day." 

Somewhere  out  of  all  that  superfluity  of  wealth, 
Amber  contrived  to  find  her  six  pounds  four  and 
threepence.  The  envelope  she  put  it  in  was  the 
first  receptacle  that  came  to  her  hand. 

From  some  place  of  concealment,  she  watched 
John  come  out  on  the  way  to  his  library.  There 
was  a  set  determination  in  her  mind  that  he  should 
not  be  there  when  she  came  to  pay  him  back.  It 
occurs  to  some,  no  doubt,  that  in  such  a  case  she 
might  have  sent  her  money  by  post.  It  had  oc- 
curred to  her.  She  had  put  it  aside  without  hesita- 
tion. Another  purpose  came  first  to  be  served. 

Against   every  inclination,   affronting  every  im- 


A  Revelation  in  Atmosphere     227 

pulse,  she  had  refused  that  night  of  the  dinner  at 
Le  Pauvre  Monsieur  to  come  up  to  his  rooms. 
Ghosts  have  their  acknowledged  habitats.  They 
may  choose  their  dwelling  place  with  a  fineness  of 
discretion,  but  once  having  chosen  them,  not  the 
sternest  will  or  the  most  stoical  determination  can 
cause  them  to  be  evicted.  For  years  and  years  they 
will  linger  in  the  places  they  have  selected  for  their 
abode  and  though  you  may  visit  those  corners  of 
the  world  in  the  most  prosaic  of  moods,  it  will  not 
be  long  before  the  ghosts  come  out  of  their  hiding, 
laying  their  cold  fingers  upon  your  eyes,  sending  that 
shudder  through  all  your  body  which  no  tension  of 
the  nerves  or  muscles  can  restrain. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  a  stranger,  saying:  "Just  a 
ghost  walking  over  my  grave,  that's  all."  To  the 
stranger  it  means  little  more  or  little  less  than 
nothing.  But  to  one  who  knows,  to  one  with  whom 
those  moments  of  your  life  were  played,  of  which 
that  ghost  is  the  undying  spirit,  it  is  such  a  con- 
fession of  weakness  as — if  you  have  pride  at  all — 
you  would  not  reveal  for  the  ransom  of  a  thousand 
kings. 

It  was  because  she  would  not  waken  those  ghosts 
to  life  in  his  presence  that  Amber  had  refused  that 
night  to  come  to  John's  rooms. 

Yet  to  a  woman,  often  the  touch  of  those  icy 
fingers  upon  her  eyes  is  a  pain  she  would  willingly 
bear  rather  than  be  numb  of  the  sensations  of  life. 
It  was  so  with  Amber. 

Calling  herself  a  sentimental  idiot,  indeed  all 
those  names  and  epithets  by  which  you  justify  your- 


228      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

self  in  the  performance  of  a  deed  which  in  others 
would  earn  your  relentless  contempt,  she  had  come 
down  to  Fetter  Lane  that  morning.  When  John 
had  passed  up  the  street,  she  hurried  into  the  side 
door  by  Mrs.  Meakin's  shop.  With  her  heart 
beating  in  half-a-dozen  places  all  at  once,  she  ran 
up  the  stairs  to  John's  room. 

Mrs.  Rowse,  she  knew,  would  be  there.  By  all 
calculation,  Mrs.  Rowse  would  be  in  his  bedroom 
now  he  had  gone  out.  She  would  be  tidying  up. 
And  that  was  precisely  what  she  was  doing. 

In  answer  to  Amber's  knock,  she  opened  the  door 
and  stood  there  calculating  the  days  Amber  should 
have  been  in  prison,  when,  coming  to  the  conclusion 
that  she  had  effected  her  escape,  she  was  in  two 
minds  as  to  what  she  ought  to  do. 

"How  did  yer  get  out,  Miss?"  she  asked. 

When  it  was  explained  how  Mrs.  Rowse  knew; 
that  it  was  not,  as  at  first  must  have  appeared,  that 
John  had  told  her — a  thought  more  expressed  in 
a  sudden  beating  of  her  heart,  rather  than  by  a 
definite  suspicion  in  her  mind — Amber  proceeded, 
not  without  pride,  to  explain  how  Mr.  Grey  had 
paid  the  money  at  the  court  and  come  all  the  way 
down  to  Holloway  to  meet  her  on  her  release. 

She  was  proud  of  it.  There  was  no  doubt  about 
that.  If  Mrs.  Rowse  knew  that  she  had  been  sent 
to  prison,  she  might  as  well  know  who  had  had 
the  chivalry,  the  generosity,  and  all  the  other  fine 
impulses  she  liked  to  imagine,  to  buy  her  out.  She 
might  as  well  know,  too,  that  Amber  could  pay  the 
money  back,  which  she  could  assume  was  the  pur- 


A  Revelation  in  Atmosphere     229 

pose  of  her  visit.  She  might,  indeed  she  should, 
know  all  the  facts  of  the  case  which  Amber  was  at 
liberty  to  tell  her;  and  if  from  the  information  she 
liked  to  draw  conclusions  that  Amber  had  not 
entirely  been  thrust  upon  one  side,  that  she  had  not 
absolutely  been  discarded,  well,  that  was  all  up  to 
the  quality  of  her  intelligence  and  her  ability  to 
perform  the  arithmetical  feat  of  adding  two  and 
two. 

"I  just  want  to  leave  this  on  his  desk,"  said  she, 
when  she  had  made  an  end  and  neatly  rounded  off 
the  impression  so  that  you  would  never  have  guessed 
it  was  intended  to  be  given.  "I  just  want  to  leave 
this  on  his  desk — can  I  go  in?" 

"Certainly,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Rowse,  a  trifle 
familiar,  as  she  would  have  felt  with  any  erstwhile 
inmate  of  Holloway;  a  trifle  affectionate,  too,  be- 
cause the  impression  had  made  its  mark. 

"Excuse  me  goin'  on  with  the  bedroom,  won't 
yer,"  Mrs.  Rowse  added.  "I've  the  brass  to  clean 
this  mornin'  so  I've  got  no  time  to  be  diuckin' 
about." 

Willingly  Amber  let  her  go  and  herself  walked 
through  the  other  door  into  that  room  where  all 
the  ghosts  of  countless  evenings,  of  nights  and 
mornings  and  all  the  happy  days  lay  waiting  to 
touch  her  eyes  with  their  icy  fingers. 

She  closed  the  door  behind  her  and  stood  there, 
looking  at  the  familiar  furniture  it  seemed  she  had 
not  seen  for  a  hundred  years  and  yet  had  left  but 
the  day  before.  There  came  the  shudder  through 
all  her  body  as  well  she  knew  there  would.  But 


230      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

in  her  eyes  there  was  no  hint  of  tears.  It  was  not 
that  she  would  not  cry.  She  could  not.  The  icy 
fingers  do  not  press  tears  out  of  the  eyes.  It  is 
some  mere  nerve  from  the  eye  to  the  brain  they 
touch.  It  is  thoughts  not  tears  they  disturb;  but 
thoughts  in  such  confusion  no  mind  can  sift  them 
out.  They  lie  on  the  heart  with  all  their  accumulated 
weight  and  the  heart  aches — a  dull  persistent  ache — 
but  that  is  all. 

This  then,  was  what  she  had  lost,  this  warm 
sense  of  companionship,  this  close  spirit  of  under- 
standing, this  intimate  admission  to  the  very  soul 
of  a  man  which -was  so  definitely  contained  in  the 
atmosphere  held  in  the  space  between  those  four 
walls. 

Was  it  her  fault?  There  came  a  sudden  revela- 
tion to  her  that  it  was.  She  had  never  reached  the 
center  of  his  heart.  All  she  had  done  was  to  make 
his  pulses  beat  the  quicker  and  had  been  content 
with  that. 

She  knew  then  as  she  stood  there,  leaning  back 
against  the  door  and  looking  round  the  room,  that 
there  must  be  more  in  a  man's  life  than  his  pulses; 
a  deeper  emotion  than  that  which  rises  thickly  in 
his  throat,  a  more  profound  service  than  that  which 
ministers  to  his  bodily  comfort,  even  though  it  may 
be  with  the  faithfulness  and  servitude  of  a  slave. 

That  was  what  she  had  given  him — servitude — 
and  so  freely  given  had  it  been,  that  she  had  never 
appreciated  it  was  no  more. 

She  realized  then  as  she  looked  about  the  room 
with  its  mixture  of  physical  austerity  and  mental 


A  Revelation  in  Atmosphere     231 

comfort,  that  it  is  only  when  a  man  is  finished  with 
life,  when  the  sap  of  impulse  in  him  has  run  dry, 
that  he  asks  for  servitude  and,  getting  it,  is  well 
content.  But  till  that  sap  is  dry,  belief  is  a  greater 
gift  than  service  and  she  had  never  given  him  that. 
She  had  treated  him  just  as  an  ordinary  man  in  the 
ordinary  traffic  of  life;  been  ready  to  leave  him  if 
the  need  called  her,  been  ready  to  let  him  go  if  the 
cry  had  come  to  him.  And  all  the  time — willing 
as  he  had  been  to  take  her  servitude — it  was  the 
greater  thing  he  wanted  out  of  Life  and  only  the 
less  had  she  proffered. 

Some  men,  perhaps,  could  make  the  best  out  of 
themselves,  standing  alone  and  needing  the  help  of 
no  one.  He  was  not  one  of  these.  He  was  one 
of  the  children  that  never  came  to  man's  estate;  one 
of  those  children  who  walk,  staring  at  the  stars  and, 
not  watching  their  feet,  stumble  so  often  and  fall 
into  the  mud. 

Seeing  his  room  after  these  months  of  absence, 
not  for  the  ghosts  it  contained,  but  in  the  spirit  it 
betrayed,  she  knew  then  what  she  had  failed  to 
give  him;  what,  stumbling  on  through  his  life,  he 
suddenly  had  come  upon  in  Jill. 

Without  ever  having  seen  Jill,  herself,  Amber's 
imagination  projected  a  vision  of  her  out  of  the 
atmosphere  of  that  room.  Seeing  how  gifted 
women  are  in  these  occult  practices,  the  vision  was 
strangely  at  fault. 

She  saw  a  girl  with  a  beauty  of  her  own.  To  a 
woman  this  means  perhaps  the  most  clangerous 
beauty  of  all.  And  so  far  as  that  went,  the  vision 


232      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

was  sure  enough.  But  it  was  the  type  of  mind  she 
saw,  beyond  that  personality  of  appearance  in  which, 
had  she  known  it,  or  John  known  it,  she  had  so  far 
gone  astray. 

For  what  she  saw  was  a  mind  tuned  to  the  mea- 
sure of  truth  and  lit  with  the  soft,  clear  light  of 
beauty.  A  mind,  she  saw,  that  would  thrill  to  all 
the  inspirations  of  his  own;  a  mind,  receptive  of 
his  thoughts  before  he  so  much  as  uttered  them.; 
receptive  of  those  thoughts  which  never  reached  the 
communicating  function  of  his  brain. 

What  indeed  she  saw — for  no  picture  that  comes 
in  these  moments  of  vision  is  without  its  truth — 
was  a  sudden  revelation  of  John's  own  mind  as  it 
was  contained  in  the  atmosphere  of  that  room.  Her 
fault  had  only  been  that  she  thought  it  was  Jill,  and, 
with  that  thought,  it  seemed  she  knew  so  surely  then 
why  she  had  had  to  go. 

Never  in  her  life  would  she  be  able  to  give  him 
that  quality  of  mind.  It  was  not  hers  and  trying 
to  give — as  indeed  she  might  well  have  the  will — 
would  prove  so  dismal  a  failure  as  to  be  too  pitiable 
to  think  about. 

So  she  stood,  all  those  moments,  with  her  back 
to  the  door,  looking  about  her  and  it  was  not  John 
she  blamed;  nor  could  she  blame  herself.  There 
came  a  wonder  upon  her,  that  was  all,  a  wonder 
why  life  throws  people  together  with  such  apparent 
poverty  of  discrimination. 

Why  had  she  ever  met  him?  Why  he,  her? 
Who  was  the  gainer — who  was  the  loser?  And 
above  all,  in  an  amazing  magnanimity  of  heart,  the 


rA  Revelation  in  Atmosphere     233 

wonder  if  now  he  had  met  the  right  woman,  no  less 
than  a  tender  hope  that  he  had. 

With  the  arrival  of  her  mind  at  that  thought, 
she  said  out  loud,  as  was  her  invariable  habit  to 
think  when  she  was  alone:  "Bless  his  funny  old 
face,"  which  must  be  supposed  to  have  conveyed 
more  to  her  than  it  looks  in  the  chill  of  print — and 
she  moved  over  to  the  desk  with  her  six  pounds 
four  and  threepence. 

This  she  laid  down  in  its  envelope,  conspicuously 
on  his  blotter  and  was  about  to  turn  away  when  her 
eye  caught  the  manuscript — a  sheet  of  paper  no 
more — of  a  poem  he  had  been  writing. 

Possibly  she  was  not  within  her  right.  But  it 
was  his.  One  day  it  would  appear  in  print.  One 
day  anyone  might  read  it.  Why  not  she,  then? 
She  picked  it  up : 

Parting  is  nought — 

The  quick  sharp  wrench  of  hands  apart, 

The  swift,  last  look  of  aching  eyes 

The  broken  breath,  the  tears  that  start, 

The  dumb  wonder  and  the  mute  surprise 

That  neither  will,  nor  love,  nor  God  have  power 

To  add  one  moment  to  the  parting  hour. 

Parting  is  nought — 

Each  winter's  filled  with  parting  things. 

The  leaves  that  from  the  elm  tree  falls, 

The  chaffinch  and  her  mate  that  no  more  sings, 

The  spread  of  Death  that  settles  over  all, 

All  this  is  parting — but  Life  comes  again 

With  just  the  fingers  touch  of  April  rain. 

Parting  is  nought — 

But  U  the  long,  sad  hours  that  draw 


234      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Their  weary  feet  down  paths  of  endless  days; 

Knowing  there  is  no  meeting  ever  more, 

No  April  rain,  no  song  of  Springtime  praise. 

Here  is  a  pain  that  quivers  at  a  touch 

God  gives  to  those  who've  loved  not  little  but  too  much. 

Why  had  he  written  that?  There  was  a  swell 
of  something  in  her  throat  and  then  a  pulse  of 
something  in  her  heart.  Why  had  he  written  that? 
It  was  the  cry  of  a  mind  in  deepest  pain,  yet  there 
he  was  on  the  very  eve  almost  of  his  marriage.  Why 
had  he  written  that : 

No  April  rain — no  song  of  Springtime  praise. 

She  felt  a  hope  and  a  breaking  in  her  heart  at 
the  same  moment. 

An  instant  later,  she  was  swiftly  putting  it  back 
as  it  lay  on  the  blotter.  There  came  the  sound  of 
footsteps  up  his  uncarpeted  flight  of  stairs.  They 
approached  the  door.  The  handle  was  turned.  The 
door  opened. 

She  looked  round.  There  was  John  standing  in 
the  entrance. 


Chapter  XXXV:    Being  a  Millionaire 

THE  movement  of  both  of  them  was  arrested 
in  some  ridiculous  way  as  though  a  photog- 
rapher with  his  camera  had  suddenly  put 
up  his  hand,  saying:  "Now!  Like  that!  Just  one 
moment,  please!" 

Then,  not  only  because  of  its  ridiculousness,  not 
merely  because  something  was  throbbing  in  her 
heart,  but  as  much  because  she  would  hide  from 
him  the  ghosts  that  would  not  leave  her,  Amber 
laughed,  a  full,  round  laugh.  It  was  like  taking 
the  drapery  of  a  generous  cloak  and  wrapping  its 
folds  about  them  while  she  caught  them  to  her  body 
close. 

"Of  course,  you  would  come  back,"  said  she,  at 
the  edge  of  her  laughter.  "I  thought  you'd  safely 
got  away  when  I  saw  you  go  up  the  street.  But 
I've  never  known  you  do  anything  one  expected 
you  to." 

John  relaxed  from  the  photographic  attitude,  and 
came  into  the  room,  closing  the  door  behind  him. 

"What  on  earth  are  you  doing  here?"  he  asked. 

She  made  a  bold  front  of  it,  confessing  to  being 
caught  out,  with  the  faint  suggestion  that  she  knew 
she  had  probably  offended  him. 

"This,"  said  she  and,  just  picking  up  the  envelope, 

235 


236      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

she  threw  it  down  again  on  the  desk  where  the 
chink  of  the  money  it  contained  told  him  plainer 
than  words  what  she  had  been  up  to. 

If  he  was  mighty  glad  to  get  that  money  back, 
even  she,  with  all  her  instincts  about  him,  would  not 
have  guessed  it. 

He  looked  for  one  instant  as  though,  however 
much  by  accident  it  might  have  been,  she  had  thrown 
it  back  in  his  face.  The  next  moment  he  was  dis- 
claiming all  need  of  it. 

"Do  you  think  I've  forgotten  how  hard  it  would 
be  for  you  to  get  hold  of  as  much  as  that?"  said 
he.  "Go  on,  you  take  every  penny  of  it  back,  and 
pay  it  if  you  like  in  instalments,  a  pound  a  month, 
something  like  that  till  it's  all  paid  off." 

He  strode  across  the  room  and  picked  up  the 
envelope.  The  feel  of  that  money  it  contained  was 
tantalizing.  With  such  a  sum  he  had  intended  to 
buy  Jill  her  engagement  ring.  Without  it 

What  is  the  good  of  pretending  that  he  had  all 
the  high  qualities  of  a  hero;  that  he  was  hurt  at 
her  returning  it  and  nothing  more?  What  is  the 
good  of  suggesting  that  he  wanted  her  to  keep  it 
more  than  he  needed  it  himself;  that  he  had  no 
thought  of  the  benefits  it  would  mean  to  him?  Not 
a  ha'p'orth  of  good  in  the  world!  He  was  no  hero. 
He  wanted  it  damnably. 

It  was  not,  however,  because  she  guessed  that, 
that  she  fought  for  it  to  stay  where  it  was.  He 
thrust  it  finally  in  her  hand.  With  no  less  finality 
she  pitched  it  away  into  a  corner  of  the  room. 

"If  you  give  it  to  me  again,"  she  said,  "I'll  take 


Being  a  Millionaire  237 

it  outside  and  I'll  fling  it  through  the  window  and 
smash  the  window  pane." 

There  comes  a  point  in  an  argument  of  this 
nature  when  one  can  persuade  oneself  with  convic- 
tion that  surrender  is  all  that  remains.  With  an 
honest  reluctance,  mingled  with  a  no  less  genuine 
sense  of  satisfaction,  John  picked  up  the  envelope 
from  the  floor  and  put  it  in  his  pocket. 

"Now  tell  me  what  you're  going  to  do  with  it!" 
said  she. 

When  he  admitted  he  was  going  to  buy  Jill's  en- 
gagement ring  with  it,  she  knew,  as  she  had  known 
before  in  her  bones,  that  she  had  been  right. 

With  a  sudden  affectionate  gesture,  that  was  a 
genuine  impulse,  she  caught  hold  of  his  arm  telling 
him  to  go  out  and  buy  it  then  and  there  and,  what 
is  more,  insisted  that  she  was  coming  with  him. 

There  was  a  game,  which  in  the  past  days  John 
had  sometimes  played  with  her.  It  is  the  cheapest 
game  in  the  world,  though  it  deals  with  hundreds 
of  pounds  and  may  at  times  run  into  thousands. 
If  you  play  it  in  Bond  Street,  it  can  be  in  thousands 
before  you  know  where  you  are. 

The  purpose  which  brought  them  out  that  morn- 
ing, suggested  the  game  to  John  without  even  so 
much  as  a  word  passing  between  them.  They  were 
standing  outside  the  window  of  Boissard  Freres, 
gazing  at  pearl  necklaces  and  diamond  pendants  in 
the  same  sort  of  awe  with  which  a  guttersnipe  looks 
through  the  window  at  a  mountain  of  sweets  marked 
four  ounces  a  penny. 

Suddenly  John  took  her  arm  and  before  she  knew 


238      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

where  she  was,  Amber  was  being  led  into  that 
spacious  apartment  where  there  are  two  or  three 
occasional  tables  standing  upon  expensive  Persian 
rugs,  but  nothing  to  suggest  that  anybody  ever  did 
any  business  on  the  premises.  There  was  none  of 
that  disgusting  atmosphere  of  buying  and  selling 
in  the  place.  If  you  happened  to  come  across  any 
such  things  as  the  contents  of  the  window  outside 
suggested  you  might,  it  would  be  invariably  by  ac- 
cident. If  you  paid  for  it,  then  it  would  be  an 
insult  on  your  part  and  if  they  accepted  it,  then, 
a  generous  oversight  on  theirs.  It  was  an  atmos- 
phere where  anything  might  happen  but  where  you 
would  always  be  bodily  at  your  ease. 

The  moment  John  said  he  wanted  to  see  some 
diamond  and  emerald  rings,  Amber  recognized  that 
game.  It  is  called — being  a  millionaire. 

All  sorts  of  people  play  it — even  millionaires. 
But  when  a  millionaire  plays  it,  he  calls  it  by  a 
different  name.  He  calls  it — being  a  pauper.  The 
only  distinction  between  the  two  is  that  when  play- 
ing— being  a  pauper — you  finish  the  game  differ- 
ently. Voluntarily,  you  give  the  secret  away.  You 
don't  want  them  to  think  you  a  pauper  all  the  time. 
Playing — being  a  millionaire — the  difficult  part  of 
it  is  not  to  let  the  secret  give  itself  away.  Being  a 
millionaire  is  much  the  better  game  of  the  two,  be- 
cause it's  such  a  tremendous  joke  if  you  win.  It 
gives  you  all  sorts  of  feelings  of  satisfaction  and 
omnipotence.  You  walk  out  of  the  shop  as  though 
you  had  made  a  bid  for  the  theater  in  Drury  Lane. 
Whereas,  in  being  a  pauper,  the  thing  is  to  lose  and 


Being  a  Millionaire  239 

if  you  can't  lose,  it  makes  you  damnably  cross  that 
people  don't  recognize  you  for  what  you  really  are. 

That  morning,  in  the  premises  of  Boissard  Freres, 
John  was  playing  the  first  game.  He  walked  into 
the  shop  as  though  he  knew  well  enough  where  these 
society  jewelers  keep  the  things  they  sell,  and  he 
looked  about  him. 

A  gentleman  seated  at  a  table  at  the  end  of  the 
room — a  gentleman  beautifully  dressed,  with  patent 
leather  boots  glistening  under  the  table — looked  up 
as  John  entered.  In  a  single  instant,  with  the  prac- 
ticed eye  of  one  who  has  been  playing  the  game  all 
his  life,  he  summed  the  matter  up  and  made  his 
first  move.  He  called  to  a  young  attendant  who 
at  once  appeared.  He  directed  him  in  French  to 
inquire  what  John  wanted. 

These  were  the  first  two  moves.  John  had  en- 
tered the  shop  with  a  splendid  and  casual  indiffer- 
ence. The  manager  had  taken  stock  of  him  and 
met  the  maneuver  by  summoning  a  young  assistant. 

So  far  the  Boissard  Freres  were  winning  easily. 

The  young  attendant  approached  John.  He  was 
just  as  wonderfully  dressed  as  the  manager,  far 
better  dressed  than  John  had  ever  been  in  his  life, 
but  he  was  a  young  man.  The  meaning  conveyed 
by  the  manager  in  this  need  not  be  commented  upon. 
It  was  a  distinct  score. 

"What  can  I  do  for  you?"  asked  the  young  as- 
sistant and  in  that  tone  of  voice  which  subtly  sug- 
gested that,  with  the  promotion  for  which  he  hoped, 
he  would  one  day  be  in  a  position  to  leave  these 
transactions  to  others. 


240      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

John  spent  a  little  time  lighting  a  cigarette  and 
then  asked  to  see  some  diamond  and  emerald  rings. 

"About  what  price?"'  asked  the  young  man. 

This  is  a  common  catch  move  in  the  game,  like 
the  fool's  mate  and  other  obvious  gambits.  No  one 
who  knows  how  to  play  is  ever  taken  in  by  it. 

"Well — I  wanted  to  see  some  rings,"  said  John. 
"I  wasn't  thinking  so  much  about  the  price.  If  I 
see  anything  I  like  we  can  begin  to  talk  about  the 
price.  Don't  sell  it  to  me  before  I've  seen  it.  I 
don't  ask  more  than  that." 

From  the  manner  in  which  the  young  man  turned 
away  to  do  as  he  was  bid,  the  manager  saw  that 
Boissard  Freres  had  had  a  set  back.  He  consulted 
in  an  undertone  with  the  young  man  and  indicated 
a  drawer  half-concealed  in  the  decoration  of  the 
room. 

John  turned  and  looked  out  of  the  glass  door  into 
Bond  Street  and  Amber  squeezed  his  arm. 

"I  hope  I'm  not  going  to  laugh,"  said  she. 

Most  firmly  he  enjoined  her  not  to.  When  play- 
ing this  as  a  four-cornered  game — as  in  this  in- 
stance of  John  and  Amber  against  the  manager  and 
the  assistant — it  is  one  of  the  foremost  rules  that 
your  partner  does  not  laugh. 

In  a  few  moments  the  young  man  returned  with 
a  box  containing  the  kind  of  ring  mentioned  by  John, 
but  of  obviously  an  inferior  class  to  the  specimens 
they  had  seen  in  the  window. 

John  looked  at  them  dubiously,  so  dubiously  that 
at  last  the  young  man  picked  up  the  best  in  the  case 
and  held  it  out  so  that  it  caught  the  light. 


Being  a  Millionaire  241 

"This  is  a  very  nice  ring,"  said  he;  "ninety- 
five  pounds,"  and  his  eyes  were  sharp  on  John's 
face.  John  never  moved  a  muscle.  He  never  even 
looked  at  the  ring.  His  eye  wandered  casually  over 
the  case  and  he  said: 

"You  can  show  me  better  than  these — can't  you?" 

"Certainly,  sir,"  said  the  young  man  and  took  the 
case  away.  John  looked  at  Amber  with  a  solemn 
face  and  slowly  shut  one  eye. 

The  next  case  contained  six  rings.  John  picked 
up  the  biggest  of  them.  Size  is  a  fair  criterion  in 
these  matters. 

"What's  the  price  of  this?"  he  asked  and,  taking 
Amber's  hand,  he  held  it  out  and  put  the  ring  on 
her  finger,  regarding  it  critically. 

"Three  hundred  and  eighty-five  pounds,  that  one, 
sir." 

John  screwed  up  his  face,  then  looked  up  at 
Amber. 

"What  do  you  think  about  it?"  he  asked. 

And  Amber,  who  but  a  few  days  before  had  been 
in  Holloway  Prison  for  a  debt  of  six  pounds,  five 
and  threepence,  said  that  of  course  it  was  very  nice, 
but  that  there  was  something  in  the  color  of  the 
emerald  she  somehow  did  not  like. 

The  young  man  was  inclined  to  be  courteously 
amused  by  this  criticism  and  might  easily,  had  he 
been  a  first-class  player,  have  scored  heavily  by 
taking  advantage  of  the  general  ignorance  of  the 
public. 

He  lost  his  chance,  utterly,  when  he  said  without 
absolute  conviction  that  he  doubted  whether  a 


242      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

better  colored  stone  could  be  found  in  London  or 
Paris. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  interposed  John,  "that 
you  haven't  got  a  stone  of  a  better  color  than  that 
yourselves — here — in  the  shop?" 

The  young  man  put  the  ring  back  in  the  case  and 
went  again  to  the  manager.  After  a  moment's 
muttered  conversation,  the  manager  rose  from  his 
table  and  approached  them.  This  is  a  moment  as 
when  in  Chess,  you  suddenly  move  your  Queen  out 
of  a  crowd  of  pieces  in  a  far  corner  and,  sailing 
down  the  whole  length  of  the  board,  you  say: 
"Check." 

It  is  a  moment  as  thrilling  as  that.  It  is  a  moment 
also  when  it  is  quite  possible  for  you  not  to  have 
noticed  that  you  are  placing  her  in  direct  vulner- 
ability to  your  opponent's  knight. 

"You  want  a  better  emerald,  sir,"  said  the  man- 
ager, "than  the  ones  you  have  already  seen?" 

"I  want  the  best  stone  I  can  get,"  replied  John, 
which  was  so  undeniably  true  that  he  could  say  it 
with  the  utmost  conviction. 

The  manager  unlocked  a  drawer  and  brought  out 
a  small  case,  opening  it  in  the  light  and  displaying 
a  wonderful  emerald,  green  as  the  depths  of  the 
Atlantic. 

"We  could  set  this  for  you,"  said  he,  "as  you 
wished.  We  would  submit  designs." 

John  took  the  box  in  his  hand.  It  was  so  won- 
derful a  stone  as  for  a  moment  to  keep  them  both 
serious.  At  last  he  looked  up. 

"Wkat  is  the  price  of  this?"  he  inquired. 


Being  a  Millionaire  243 

"Four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds — unset — as  it  is." 

Now  this  is  the  most  difficult  moment  of  all  in 
the  game.  Either,  it  seems,  you  must  buy  the  thing 
— which  is  ridiculous — or  you  must  refuse  it,  in 
which  case  all  your  splendid  play  which  has  carried 
you  thus  far,  goes  dead  against  you. 

John  handed  back  the  box  and  looked  straight 
into  the  manager's  eye. 

"Of  course,  I'm  not  an  expert  on  these  things," 
said  he,  "but  tell  me  candidly.  What's  the  matter 
with  it?" 

"What's  the  matter  with  it?"  repeated  the  man- 
ager. "There's  nothing  the  matter  with  it." 

John  smiled. 

"Oh,  nonsense,"  said  he.  "A  stone  like  that  is 
worth  more  than  four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  I 
know  that  much.  Yours  isn't  the  first  shop  I've  been 
into.  Of  course,  as  I  say,  I'm  not  an  expert.  I 
can't  see  what  it  is.  To  me  it  looks  perfect.  But 
I  know  this  much  that  if  it  were  really  perfect,  you 
could  get  and  would  ask  more  than  that  for  it." 

The  manager  laughed  awkwardly. 

"You  can  pay  more,  sir,  if  you  like,"  said  he, 
"but  it  won't  make  the  stone  more  perfect  than 


it  is." 


John  buttoned  up  his  coat. 

"Well — I'm  sorry,"  said  he  genially,  as  though 
he  were  sorry  as  much  for  the  manager  as  anything 
else.  "You've  rather  destroyed  my  confidence  in  it. 
I  liked  it  immensely — immensely — didn't  you,  my 
dear?"  He  turned  his  head  towards  Amber,  but 


244      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

dared  not  look  at  her  and  not  daring  to  look  at 
him,  she  replied  that  she  did,  too. 

"But  it's  no  good  buying  anything  that  you're  not 
absolutely  sure  about.  After  all,  four  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  is  a  sum  of  money.  I'm  not  so  well 
off  that  I  can  afford  to  disregard  it.  I'm  very  sorry. 
It's  only  that — well — as  I  said — you've  destroyed 
my  confidence.  I'm  sorry  to  have  given  you  all 
this  trouble.  I'm  much  obliged  to  you.  Good 
morning." 

There's  no  doubt  about  it,  it's  a  first-class  game. 


Chapter  XXXVI:   A  Fitting  for  a  Ring 

ULTIMATELY  the  ring  was  bought  in  Hoi- 
born  and  cost  six  pounds,  ten. 

The  question  of  whether  it  was  large  or 
small  enough  was  settled,  uninvited,  by  Amber,  who 
held  out  the  third  finger  of  her  left  hand. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Miss,"  said  the  jeweler,  "I 
didn't  understand  it  was  intended  for  you,"  and  the 
smile  on  his  face  can  be  described  no  better  than 
by  one  word — smirk — of  which  I  am  sure  no  self- 
respecting  dictionary  would  ever  give  a  definition. 

There  was  one  instant  when  both  of  them  could 
have  denied  it.  With  John  it  passed  the  more 
swiftly  of  the  two.  If  it  hurt  her  feelings  would 
he  not  be  a  cad,  since  the  fact  was  not  altered  by 
the  jeweler's  mistake. 

With  Amber,  that  instant  lingered.  For  the 
moment  she  could  not  make  up  her  mind.  What 
would  he  think  if  she  did  not  deny  it?  Did  it  mat- 
ter? They  both  knew  it  was  not  true.  A  spirit  of 
mischief  then — a  spirit  that  comes  to  those  with  a 
sense  of  humor  when  the  heart  cannot  be  more  hurt 
than  it  is — lifted  with  a  laugh  into  her  eyes.  There 
was  something  just  comical,  just  in  accordance  with 
all  the  odd  ways  and  situations  of  John'  life  that 

245 


246      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

she  should  be  standing  there  being  fitted  for  Jill's 
engagement  ring. 

And  lastly,  before  the  instant  quite  had  gone, 
there  was  the  bitter  satisfaction  of  being  engaged 
to  him  even  for  five  minutes,  even  in  the  eyes  of 
a  twopenny  ha'penny  little  jeweler  in  High  Holborn. 

He  tried  the  ring  on  her  finger  and  she  never 
said  a  word. 

It  was  too  small.  It  would  have  been  too  small 
for  anyone.  Arrangements  were  made  that  it 
should  be  enlarged  and  sent  to  Fetter  Lane  as  soon 
as  it  was  ready. 

Leaving  a  deposit,  as  is  customary  in  these  shops 
where  you  do  nothing  but  business  and  playing  at 
being  a  millionaire  would  be  a  waste  of  time,  and 
they  came  out  again  into  the  street. 

She  was  far  more  in  a  state  of  wonderment  at 
his  silence  than  at  her  own.  Her  own,  frankly,  she 
had  not  attempted  to  understand.  Not  one  of  those 
thoughts,  definitely  recorded,  had  passed  into  the 
conscious  function  of  her  mind. 

But  he  must  have  known  why  he  had  said  noth- 
ing, why  he  had  not  offered  to  drive  the  smirk  off 
the  jeweler's  face  with  a  simple  explanation. 

In  a  timid  fashion,  she  laid  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"Why  didn't  you  say  it  was  not  for  me?"  she 
asked. 

He  looked  round  at  her,  smiling. 

"You  dear  old  thing,"  said  he,  "what  did  it 
matter?  A  stuffy  little  jeweler.  It  doesn't  matter 
what  he  thinks,  does  it?" 

And  that  was  punishment  enough  for  her  mis- 


A  Fitting  for  a  Ring  247 

chief.  Obviously  he  had  kept  silent  in  order  not 
to  hurt  her  feelings.  He  could  think  of  and  for 
her  and  let  a  little  mistake  like  that  go  by. 

Why? 

Because  he  was  so  deeply  in  love  that  nothing 
but  the  great  things  mattered.  He  was  so  deeply 
in  love  as  that  his  heart  had  grown  big  enough  to 
hold  a  tender  thought  of  her. 

It  was  this  she  knew  she  could  never  bring  him. 
In  all  the  years  they  had  been  together  she  had 
never  succeeded  in  stirring  him  like  this.  He  had 
turned  from  her  to  the  sound  of  a  clarion  call.  He 
had  turned  to  make  his  life  and  his  work  out  of 
love  and  before  him  lay  paths  of  gold — as  he  had 
read  to  her  in  Browning — and  the  need  of  a  world 
of  men — for  her. 

They  had  lived  in  the  light  and  the  darkness  to- 
gether. Now  it  was  morning  and  the  sun  had 
beckoned  him  from  over  the  mountain's  rim. 


Chapter  XXXVII:  Prelude  to  a  Rehearsal 

ONCE  having  bought  the  engagement  ring  it 
seemed  to  John  affairs  were  going  at  such 
a  pace  as  that  nothing  short  of  an  earth- 
quake or  the  sound  of  trumpets  announcing  the  last 
day  could  stop  them. 

He  put  it  on  his  mantlepiece  in  its  leather  jewel 
box  where  Mrs.  Rowse  could  well  observe  it.  The 
very  next  morning  while  dusting,  it  came  under  her 
eye.  Out  of  the  corner  of  his  own,  he  saw  her 
quick  glance  of  suspicion.  It  is  in  the  natural  order 
of  things  that  a  woman  should  be  suspicious  about 
a  jeweler's  box,  purporting  to  hold  a  ring.  Jeweler's 
shops  would  have  to  put  up  their  shutters  and  men 
could  be  sure  of  a  balance  at  the  bank  if  it  were 
not  so. 

But  in  Mrs.  Rowse's  suspicions  there  was  more 
than  a  woman's  mere  instinct  for  finery  that  is  be- 
yond her  means.  Her  mind  flew  at  once — as  he 
guessed  it  would — to  John's  pertinent  questions 
about  marriage  in  a  hurry.  She  performed  in  her 
mind  that  mathematical  calculation  in  which  women 
are  as  accurate  as  machines.  She  put  two  and  two 
together,  and  was  by  no  means  surprised  to  find 
how  palpably  they  made  four. 

248 


Prelude  to  a  Rehearsal          249 

"Do  you  want  me  to  leave  this  'ere,  sir?"  she 
asked. 

John  said  he  saw  no  purpose  in  removing  it. 

"Valuable  ring  like  that,  sir,"  said  Mrs.  Rowse, 
seeing  through  the  lid  of  the  leather  box  as  though 
it  were  made  of  glass,  "might  easy  get  knocked  into 
the  fire." 

"Not  if  you're  careful,  Mrs.  Rowse.  Besides  it 
won't  be  there  for  long.  It'll  be  gone  this  morn- 
ing." 

Mrs.  Rowse  dusted  it  and  laid  it  down  as  though 
it  were  a  baby  she  was  putting  to  sleep  when,  seeing 
that  she  had  placed  it  with  the  hinges  facing  out- 
wards, she  carefully  turned  it  round. 

"I  expect  that  cost  a  lot  of  money,  sir,"  said  she. 

"What  makes  you  think  that,  Mrs.  Rowse?" 

"Well,  sir,  ladies  like  expensive  things  now-a- 
days,  don't  they?  What  I  mean,  they  don't  seem 
to  be  satisfied  with  what  they  used  to  be.  The 
only  bit  of  jewelry  my  mother  'ad  was  a  Scotch 
pebble  in  a  brooch.  Now  my  Lizzie  when  she  got 
married  would  'ave  'er  diamonds.  They  weren't 
real  of  course — not  what  they  call  water  diamonds, 
but  those  paste  jewels  shine  like  winking  if  you  look 
at  'em  right." 

John  rose  from  his  chair.  She  deserved  her  re- 
ward. What  is  more  he  had  been  longing  to  show 
it  to  her  from  the  very  first.  And  when  she  saw 
Jill's  engagement  ring,  she  breathed  so  deep  a  sigh 
that  John  shut  the  box  and  hurried  into  his  bed- 
room in  apprehension  of  all  questions  that  might 
follow. 


250      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It  was  getting  so  very  close  to  the  wedding.  For 
though  this  was  only  the  stage  of  the  engagement 
ring,  yet  in  their  schedule  of  affairs,  events  were 
to  crowd  one  upon  another  in  the  swiftest  succession. 

That  morning  Jill  was  to  meet  at  lunch  the  two 
witnesses  to  the  ceremony.  It  seemed  necessary  to 
John  they  should  be  broken  into  some  sort  of  ac- 
quaintance first  before  the  actual  meeting  in  the 
Registry  Office.  It  made  things  easier.  You  can- 
not properly  worry  about  introductions  when  you 
are  about  to  step  across  the  threshold  into  the  magic 
of  life.  None  too  confident  about  her  reception  of 
them,  John  had  decided  she  should  meet  them  first 
in  the  midst  of  the  ordinary  amenities  of  a  work- 
a-day  world. 

It  would,  moreover,  be  a  rehearsal  for  them.  He 
wanted  them  to  appear  in  their  best  light  and  with- 
out actual  experience  he  was  none  too  certain  what 
sort  of  a  light  that  was  going  to  be.  It  might 
appear  like  the  light  of  a  farthing  dip  stuck  in  the 
neck  of  a  beer  bottle. 

That  day  then,  at  lunch,  was  to  be  the  experi- 
ment of  their  rehearsal.  He  went  into  his  bed- 
room when  he  heard  Mrs.  Rowse's  sigh — he  went 
into  his  bedroom  to  change  his  clothes  for  the  oc- 
casion. 


Chapter  XXXVIII:  Costumes  for  the  Part 

THROUGHOUT  life  there  is  always  the  in- 
stinct, and  as  often  as  not  in  the  very  best 
of  us,  to  dress  the  part. 

A  soldier  puts  on  a  red  coat  and  struts  up  and 
down,  giving  the  impression  that  war  is  a  bloody 
business.  Undoubtedly  he  is  right.  A  priest  arrays 
himself  in  an  apparently  seamless  garment  of  a 
pattern  such  as  they  are  supposed  to  have  worn  in 
Palestine  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago  and  if  by 
any  chance  there  were  a  conspicuous  slit  in  the  back 
of  it,  I  doubt  whether  he  would  be  able  to  perform 
in  true  spirit  the  service  of  the  Church. 

To  stitch  a  broad  arrow  on  to  his  coat  would 
give  to  any  man  the  features  of  a  criminal  and 
again  I  question  whether  a  man  with  a  coat  so 
stitched  could  walk  through  the  streets  without 
avoiding  a  sense  of  shame,  let  him  be  the  most 
honest  fellow  in  the  world. 

Without  these  costumes,  and  were  Necessity 
neither  the  mother  of  Invention  nor  the  mistress  of 
the  wardrobe,  life  would  have  all  that  strenuous 
reality,  that  exhausting  earnestness  which  some 
would  endeavor  to  convince  us  is  its  purpose.  As 
it  is,  there  is  a  certain,  jolly,  play-acting  quality 
about  it  all,  failing  which,  we  should  know  men  and 

251 


252      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

women  just  for  what  they  are,  instead  of  what  a 
humorous  assortment  of  clothes  can  make  of  them. 

One  can  conceive  nothing  more  terrible  than 
knowing  one's  priest  for  what  he  is;  for  what  he 
is  may  well  be  the  last  thing  he  meant  to  be.  You 
can  tell  what  he  means  to  be,  however,  by  what  he 
wears  and  the  intentional  purpose  of  life  is  far 
more  noble  a  thing  than  its  common  reality. 

So  you  go  on  believing  in  a  world  where  belief 
is  always  better  than  knowledge.  For  knowledge 
sets  out  on  a  journey  with  a  compass  and  a  whole 
chart  of  arithmetical  calculations  while  belief  makes 
its  way  under  the  beacon  light  of  the  stars  of  God. 


Chapter  XXXIX:    The  Wardrobe 

TO  dress  up  then  and  play  the  part  is  all  a 
condition  of  the  quality  of  belief.  When 
that  morning  John  looked  into  his  wardrobe 
to  find  that  the  best  costume  he  had  would  make 
him  look  something  like  an  Italian  waiter,  that  in 
fact  there  was  no  other  garment  in  which  he  could 
properly  play  the  part  of  a  lover  about  to  drink  his 
mistress'  health,  he  felt  as  unhappy  as  the  priest 
in  the  vestry  who  discovers  a  shameful  tear  in  his 
surplice. 

I  care  little  who  chooses  to  say  this  is  not  a 
tragic  moment.  You  can  tell  me  there  are  men 
who  don't  mind  what  they  wear.  There  is  but  one 
answer  to  that.  That  is  their  role;  and  it  takes 
a  man  as  long  to  make  up  for  it  as  if  he  were  pulling 
on  silken  tights  and  offering  himself  to  the  world 
as  an  Elizabethan  Cavalier. 

It  was  a  tragic  moment  for  John  when  he  had 
to  put  on  a  gray  flannel  suit  and  set  out  to  Wriggles- 
worth's  to  meet  his  witnesses.  There  would  be  a 
moment  in  their  repast  when  he  would  hold  up  his 
glass  and  drink  the  health  of  Jill  and  he  felt  he 
could  have  done  it  so  much  better  in  that  tail  coat 
he  once  possessed  in  which  he  looked  like  a  dentist 

253 


254      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

but  fek  like  the  proprietor  of  half  the  theaters  in 
London,  or  a  politician  earning  four  hundred  a 
year. 

But  if  John,  as  the  principal  actor,  was  not  dressed 
as  correctly  for  the  performance  as  Necessity,  the 
mistress  of  the  wardrobe,  might  have  wished, 
Matteo  Allievi  and  Charles  Henry  Quirk  could 
scarcely  have  come  more  into  the  picture  than  if 
they  had  been  made  up  by  a  theatrical  costumer. 

Play-acting,  indeed,  was  the  whole  existence  of 
Matteo  Allievi.  He  had  learnt  early  in  life  that 
you  can  only  borrow  half-crowns  with  sustained 
success  when  you  have  all  the  appearance  of  being 
able  to  pay  them  back  again.  He  may  have  had 
wrong  ideas  of  what  was  really  convincing  in  that 
appearance,  but  it  was  the  earnest  intention  of  his 
soul  to  pay  them  back.  And  our  intentions  are  the 
model  for  the  character  of  which  we  dress  the  part. 

The  costume  for  this  occasion,  as  he  conceived 
it,  consisted  of  a  pair  of  check  trousers.  A  check 
is  always  fashionable,  so  long  as  it  is  not  large 
enough  to  play  parlor  games  upon.  A  check  tricks 
the  eye.  You  cannot  see  the  shine  of  wear  on  it. 
A  check  is  a  gentleman's  pattern.  It  contrives  to 
make  a  gentleman  of  you,  when  it  does  not  insist 
upon  your  being  twice  the  cad  that  you  are. 

Allievi's  trousers  were  check. 

His  coat  and  waistcoat  were  black.  There  was 
the  weak  spot  of  conviction  in  the  tout  ensemble. 
Black  goes  green.  You  may  never  have  had  it 
long  enough  to  know  this  about  it,  but  it  does.  And 
long  before  this  the  nap  has  worn  off,  the  elbows 


The  Wardrobe  255 

shine  and  there  is  a  suspicious  glitter  around  the 
edges  of  the  cuff. 

Very  probably  you  are  one  of  those  who  puts 
away  his  coat  on  a  hanger,  has  two  pairs  of  trousers 
to  every  suit  and  keeps  them  in  a  press,  in  which 
case  these  remarks  about  clothes  will  have  all  the 
appearance  of  exaggeration  and  you  will  not  even 
be  stirred  to  interest  when  you  hear  there  is  a 
remedy  for  these  conditions  of  wear.  But  there  is. 
None  of  the  tailors  in  little  streets — tailors  like  Mr. 
Bealby — will  tell  you  what  it  is  lest  you  kept  your 
black  coat  two  years  longer  than  ever  it  was  your 
wont  to  do.  These  tailors  are  quite  firm  about 
this.  You  might  burn  them  at  the  stake  before  they 
would  give  the  secret  away. 

The  secret  is — blacking. 

Just  ordinary  blacking  will  work  wonders  on  a 
black  coat  that  is  worn  at  the  elbows  and  is  begin- 
ning to  grow  pallid  in  places  with  that  tinge  of 
green.  Allievi  had  discovered  this  secret  many 
years  before. 

"I  have  the  secret,  my  boy,"  he  had  often  said 
to  John  whenever  he  put  out  his  leg  and  looked 
down  the  sharp  line  of  his  trousers,  "I  have  the 
secret  of  always  being  immaculate." 

But  he  never  told  what  the  secret  was. 

The  mere  use  of  that  word — immaculate — gave 
you  the  impression  he  knew  how  to  dress,  though, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  had  borrowed  it  from  the 
vocabulary  of  his  Church  and  not  from  any  tailor's 
advertisement. 
,  Standing  in  front  of  his  glass  one  morning,  he 


256      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

had  been  reading  the  Mass  from  his  prayer  book, 
because  a  little  appointment  of  business  had  made 
it  inconvenient  for  him  to  attend  the  service  in 
church. 

He  had  found  that  it  was  quite  an  impressive 
ceremony  even  in  an  attic  bedroom.  The  sound  of 
his  voice,  intoning  the  words,  seemed  full  of  real 
religion  to  him.  Then,  as  he  read  out  the  words 
— the  immaculate  conception  of  the  Virgin  Mary — 
he  had  looked  up  and  caught  sight  of  his  reflection 
in  the  mirror  on  the  deal  chest  of  drawers.  At  that, 
he  stopped  in  the  midst  of  his  Mass,  but  in  a  voice 
which  still  might  have  led  the  choir  of  St.  Peter's, 
he  said  aloud: 

"That's  what  I  am — immaculate." 

And  it  was  largely  due  to  boot-blacking. 

The  only  disadvantage  about  it  was  that  he  could 
not  come  too  near  to  anyone.  He  was  apt  to  leave 
his  mark. 

Yet  even  that  aloofness  had  its  compensation. 
You  always  received  the  impression  from  Allievi's 
attitude  in  conversation  that  he  was  a  man  who 
kept  himself  to  himself.  That  alone  was  no  little 
help  in  borrowing  half-a-crown.  There  was  a  dig- 
nity about  it,  making  more  pitiable  the  circumstances 
which  had  driven  him  to  that  predicament. 

So  you  have  an  indistinct  picture  of  Matteo 
Allievi  as  he  appeared  that  morning  outside  Wrig- 
glesworth's  in  his  black  coat  and  waistcoat,  his  check 
trousers,  a  very  low  collar,  a  bright  green  tie,  a 
red  handkerchief  just  idly  appearing  out  of  the  tail 
pocket  of  his  coat  and  a  pair  of  brown  boots  that 


The  Wardrobe  257 

were  the  most  priceless  possession  in  his  wardrobe. 
These  were  quite  new.  He  had  stolen  them.  That 
is  to  say,  he  had  taken  them  out  of  a  shop  when 
no  one  was  looking  and,  seeing  it  was  the  shopman's 
duty  to  keep  an  eye  on  all  his  goods,  Allievi  felt  he 
was  not  entirely  to  be  blamed. 

Frankly  he  had  told  John  all  about  it. 

"L' opportunite  fait  le  larron"  said  he,  and  in 
English  had  added  with  an  unimpeachable  sense  of 
inward  conviction.  "But  if  I  were  God,  I  should 
blame  the  man  who  made  the  opportunity.  There 
was  no  necessity  for  him  to  leave  the  shop  unpro- 
tected, and  it's  beyond  doubt,  I  badly  wanted  a  pair 
of  boots." 

It  was  beyond  all  doubt  he  wore  them  with  a 
black  tail  coat  and  pair  of  check  trousers. 

Charles  Henry  Quirk  was  very  different  from  this. 
He  had  not  the  Italian's  vigor  of  style  about  him. 
The  black  coat  which  the  lawyer's  man  had  given 
him  in  Lincoln's  Inn  as  an  inducement  to  go  up  into 
Holborn,  made  you  suspect  it  was  as  much  the  gar- 
ment he  wanted  to  see  the  last  of,  as  of  Mr.  Quirk 
and  his  clarionet.  Rubbing  a  damp  cloth  over  it 
and  pressing  it  with  a  hot  iron  had  made  its  out- 
lines more  definite  and  angular.  You  knew  it  was 
a  coat.  But  you  were  just  as  conscious  that  it  did 
not  fit. 

His  bowler  hat  seemed  somehow  wrong  with  the 
frock  coat.  His  trousers  were  frayed  at  the  bot- 
toms though  you  would  have  had  to  be  sharp  to 
notice  it,  for  Mrs.  Quirk  had  trimmed  them  to  the 
quick.  Yet  notwithstanding  that  his  boots  gave 


258      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

up  all  hope  of  competition  with  that  stolen  property 
of  Allievi's,  John  nevertheless  preferred  his  appear- 
ance of  the  two. 

Allievi  had  overdressed  the  part.  His  garments 
cried  out  in  different  places  that  there  was  a  wed- 
ding in  the  air.  The  voice  of  them  came  to  a  top 
note  with  the  gardenia  in  his  button  hole.  He  was 
better  than  a  best  man. 

When  John  introduced  them  to  each  other,  the 
one  as  Matteo  Allievi,  the  violinist,  the  other  as 
Charles  Henry  Quirk,  the  clarionet  player,  they  each 
accepted  the  best  possible  view  of  the  situation. 

Looking  at  those  splendid  check  trousers,  the 
bright  yellow  brown  boots,  the  red  silk  handker- 
chief lolling  out  of  the  tail  coat  pocket  and  that 
white  gardenia  with  only  one  petal  missing,  Charles 
Henry  Quirk  said  to  himself: 

"Well-dressed — got  money — but  can't  be  much 
of  a  violinist." 

And  Matteo  Allievi,  knowing  well  the  look  of 
frayed  trousers  however  cunningly  trimmed;  cal- 
culating to  the  incident,  the  circumstances  under 
which  such  a  frock  coat  is  acquired  and  regarding 
with  pity  the  thinness  of  the  soles  of  those  black 
boots,  he  said  to  himself: 

"Poor  as  a  church  mouse — disgustingly  poor — 
but  probably  an  excellent  clarionet  player." 

It  is  always  up  to  yourself  in  this  world  to  take 
the  best  point  of  view.  Pessimism  is  not  merely  a 
disease  of  the  liver.  It  is  a  pathological  condition 
of  the  soul.  In  any  case  it  is  no  fit  guest  at  a  wed- 
ding, or  any  party  at  all  for  the  matter  of  that. 


The  Wardrobe  259 

There  is  no  doubt  the  two  of  them  were  well 
pleased  with  each  other's  acquaintance  and  when 
Allievi  began  a  story  of  how  once  he  refused  the 
hand  of  an  Italian  countess  in  marriage,  Charles 
Henry  Quirk  listened  with  parted  lips  and  approv- 
ing nods  of  his  head. 


Chapter  XL:   The  Dress  Rehearsal 

HE  was  what  you  might  say — beastly — with 
money,"  declared  Allievi.  "Rolling  in  it." 
He  rolled  his  eyes  as  he  said  it,  to  give 
some  idea  of  the  disgraceful  state  to  which  money 
had  reduced  her. 

With  his  eyes  constantly  searching  down  the 
street  for  sight  of  Jill,  John  asked  in  an  absent- 
minded  way  how  old  she  was. 

Allievi  conveyed  into  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders 
all  that  which  he  could  not  put  into  the  limitations 
of  his  speech. 

"I  was  teaching  her  daughter  the  violin,"  said 
he.  "Ah!  But  there  was  genius!  She  had  learnt 
nearly  all  I  could  give  her.  But  when  the  contessa 
fell  in  love  with  me — what  could  I  do?  I  am  not 
a  man  with  the  cold  blood.  I  burn!" 

He  closed  his  eyes  to  convince  them  what  pains 
he  could  suffer  in  silence  under  the  influence  of 
passionate  despair.  But  this  situation  apparently 
had  been  unable  to  be  borne.  He  had  loved  the 
daughter — a  beautiful  girl  of  twenty-eight. 

"But  for  that,"  said  he,  "I  might  now  have  been 
driving  in  my  carriage." 

"But  not  your  carriage  really,"  Mr.  Quirk  sug- 
gested with  his  own  passion  for  exactitude.  "Not 
your  carriage.  Hers." 

260 


The  Dress  Rehearsal  261 

Allievi  seized  his  hand.  Here  was  an  appre- 
ciative soul,  who,  if  indeed  he  were  an  excellent 
performer  on  the  clarionet,  no  doubt,  at  times  had  a 
spare  half-crown  about  him. 

"You  read  character  I"  he  exclaimed,  "and  so 
quick!  It  was  just  that.  Nothing  else!  Her  car- 
riage— her  money — everything  would  be  hers ! 
Why  should  I  borrow  what  I  could  never  pay 
back?" 

He  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  it. 

And  all  the  time  during  the  narration  of  Allievi's 
romance,  John's  apprehensions  were  increasing  in 
force  in  his  mind.  This  meeting  it  seemed — this 
ratification  of  the  witnesses — would  be  a  final  test 
of  her  courage  to  go  through  with  it  all  to  the  end. 
If  she  accepted  Matteo  Allievi  and  Charles  Henry 
Quirk  as  signatories  to  the  greatest  event  in  her 
life,  then,  it  seemed  to  John,  there  was  little  left 
to  fear.  It  had  come  in  his  mind  to  be  an  ordeal, 
if  not  by  battle,  at  least  by  a  lunch  at  Wriggles- 
worth's,  and  now,  every  moment,  the  fear  was  com- 
ing to  him  that  she  was  not  even  going  to  make  her 
appearance  in  the  lists. 

There  was  always  the  danger,  of  course,  that  at 
the  last  moment  her  secret  had  been  discovered  and 
that  they  would  not  let  her  go.  But  the  danger 
he  feared  most,  without  realizing  how  deep  that 
fear  had  gone,  was  that  she  herself  had  changed 
her  mind. 

He  would  never  have  blamed  her.  For  much  as 
it  appeared  she  understood,  much  as  he  felt  she 
loved  him,  there  still  was  some  spirit  of  hallucina- 


262      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

tion  in  it  all.  Without  being  aware  that  he  had 
cast  the  spell  of  it,  without  being  certainly  conscious 
it  existed  at  all,  there  was  still  something  of  a 
conjuring  trick  to  him  in  the  whole  business.  For 
long  whiles  together  he  would  sit  wondering  if  it 
were  true. 

Now,  at  any  moment,  and  all  his  apprehensions 
were  aware  of  it,  he  might  learn  how  much  of 
a  mirage  it  was.  It  was  a  new  world  he  had  come 
into  and  as  yet  had  scarce  the  time  to  look  about 
him.  Now,  here,  as  it  were,  he  was  on  the  crest 
of  a  hill  from  which  it  was  possible  to  gain  some 
little  view  of  the  sort  of  world  it  was. 

Every  skirt  that  swung  round  the  corner  of  the 
street  took  his  heart  and  shook  it  till  it  beat  twice 
over  beneath  his  waistcoat.  Now  and  again  he 
left  his  companions  and  hurried  to  the  corner,  then 
hurried  back  for  fear  she  might  by  chance  have 
come  the  other  way. 

If  she  did  not  come,  what  would  he  do?  He 
began  thinking  it  out  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  Life  was  a  hazardous  adventure  after  all.  In 
the  depths  of  his  pocket,  he  turned  a  coin  over  and 
over  again,  then  pulled  it  out  and  looked  at  it. 

Heads  she  was  coming!  Tails  she  was  not!  It 
was  heads.  Had  it  been  tails,  he  was  in  that  state 
of  mind  to  believe.  Being  heads,  he  thought  what 
a  futile  business  was  this  superstitious  tossing  of  a 
coin. 

Then  he  argued  it  with  Fate,  giving  himself  no 
unwarranted  chances.  Was  it  likely  that  Fate 
would  bring  any  man  all  the  way  in  hope  to  that 


The  Dress  Rehearsal  263 

very  moment  only  to  disappoint  him  at  the  last? 
With  the  view  he  had  gained  from  his  high  crest, 
it  seemed  the  most  likely  thing  in  the  world.  Then 
why  in  the  name  of  heaven  should  he  be  picked  out 
to  be  the  sport  of  it? 

A  suspicion  that  suffering  and  disappointment  are 
the  bitter  certainties  of  life,  crept  into  the  argu- 
ment. He  knew  then  she  was  not  coming.  This 
thought  had  been  sent  him  to  help  him  bear  the 
blow  of  it.  She  was  not  coming.  He  looked  at 
his  watch.  It  was  twenty  minutes  after  the  hour. 
The  whole  sensation  of  his  being  rose,  swelling  in 
a  thickness  in  his  throat.  He  turned  away  from  the 
two  men,  still  calmly  talking  about  their  insignificant 
affairs,  at  his  side. 

She  was  not  coming.  Why  should  she  come,  in- 
deed, to  a  penniless  poor  devil  like  him?  And  why 
in  the  name  of  heaven  had  he  ever  been  fool  enough 
to  think  that  she  would  or  could. 

A  hansom  whirled  round  the  corner  of  the  street. 
At  the  sight  of  its  occupant,  involuntarily  he  seized 
Allievi  by  the  arm  and  laughed. 


Chapter  XLI :  Lunch  at  Wriggles  worth's 

A  FTER  these  first  trying  moments  of  introduc- 

/•%     tion,  when  Matteo  bowed  so  elaborately  as 

to   fling  one  back  into  the  period  of  the 

Cavaliers  and  Charles  Henry  was  obviously  so  ill- 

at-ease  as  to  take  off  his  hat  and  shake  Jill's  hand 

with  the  hand  that  gripped  it,  the  affair  began  to 

turn  the  corner  of  appearances  and  held  out  all  the 

promise  of  success. 

"Matteo  Allievi,  the  violinist " 

Well,  the  name  and  the  occupation  might  be  said 
to  justify  that  elaborate  bow.  For  it  was  not 
merely — a  violinist — but — the  violinist — and  once 
you  have  said  of  a  man  that  he  is — the  anything — 
so  long  as  it  is  not  a  trade — you  provide  an  allow- 
ance for  his  wildest  eccentricities. 

At  the  first  moment  of  meeting,  when  the  appear- 
ance of  the  two  witnesses  had  forced  itself  upon 
her,  John  had  seen  a  wavering  look  of  doubt  in 
Jill's  eyes.  With  the  exception  of  Mr.  Chesterton, 
whom  she  had  found  entertaining,  if  not  quite  so 
clever  as  his  books,  these  were  the  first  of  John's 
friends  she  had  met.  Having  engaged  them  as 
witnesses  to  the  most  solemn  ceremony  in  their  lives, 
she  assumed  they  were  friends  and  had  not  thought 

264 


Lunch  at  Wrigglesworth's       265 

of  confirming  the  assumption.  And  they  were  odd- 
looking  friends.  She  knew  what  her  father  would 
have  said  of  them. 

Swiftly  on  the  detection  of  that  puzzled  look  in 
her  eyes,  John  had  affected  his  introductions. 

"Matteo  Allievi — the  violinist " 

Jill  bowed  solemnly  to  that  grandiloquent  sweep 
of  the  hat  and  the  self-effacement  of  the  bending 
figure  of  Allievi.  Serious  and  concerned  as  he  was 
about  it  all,  John  had  to  distend  his  nostrils  to  keep 
from  laughter. 

"Charles  Henry  Quirk — the  clarionetist." 
After  violinist,  clarionet-player  sounded  beer  of 
small  parts.  Of  the  two,  John  would  sooner  have 
given 'Charles  Henry  the  best  advantages  of  in- 
troduction. Allievi  could  well  look  after  himself. 
But  Charles  Henry  was  shy — pitiably  so.  His 
hands  were  trembling.  By  the  servant  of  such  a 
lady  as  this,  he  had  often  been  sent  with  a  shilling 
into  the  next  street.  He  had  probably  seen  her 
opening  the  window,  as  he  went,  to  let  in  the  peace 
and  silence  he  left  behind  him.  He  was  abominably 
nervous,  wherefore  John  gave  him — clarionetist — 
at  a  venture,  pretty  well  convinced  that  none  of 
them  would  know  whether  he  was  right  or  wrong. 
Certainly  he  did  not  know  himself  and  relied  upon 
the  forgiveness  of  any  real  musician  who  might 
have  heard  him. 

Immediately  following  these  introductions  came 
a  warmer  sense  of  security.  The  puzzled  look  went 
out  of  Jill's  eyes.  As  a  violinist,  that  elaborate 
bow,  almost  amounting  to  a  genuflection,  was  all  in 


266     World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

accordance  with  the  facts.  So  she  saw  him  receiv- 
ing the  plaudits  of  his  audience.  John  had  strange 
friends — but  she  knew  all  artists  were  strange.  She 
had  been  to  concerts  at  Queens  Hall  often  enough 
to  discover  that  musicians  were  not  ordinary  people 
and  the  more  celebrated,  the  more  extraordinary 
they  were.  Really,  she  thought,  this  was  an  honor 
to  have  a  great  violinist,  witness  to  her  wedding 
ceremony.  Probably  he  had  played  before  Royalty, 
which  makes  everyone  elaborate  in  their  gestures 
or  in  the  disporting  of  the  tie-pin  in  their  tie.  If 
her  father  or  mother  could  know  that  John  had 
friends  who  had  received  presents  at  the  hands  of 
Royalty,  they  might  not  think  so  discouragingly  of 
her  marriage  after  all. 

She  located  the  pin  in  Allievi's  tie — a  glittering 
diamond  for  which  he  had  paid  the  complete  sum 
of  one  of  his  half-a-crowns — and  she  felt  she  was 
right  about  Royalty. 

Charles  Henry  was  different.  She  suspected  him, 
as  Matteo  had  done,  of  being  poor.  But  clarion- 
etist  is  an  inspiring  word.  In  all  the  awkward  shy- 
ness of  his  movements,  the  constant  cough  behind 
the  hand,  she  saw  with  these  eyes  of  her  ready 
belief,  a  great  musician  to  whom  the  more  con- 
spicuous success  of  Allievi  had  been  denied.  In- 
stinctively she  liked  him  best.  Her  heart  went  out 
to  him  because  of  his  failures  and  because,  having 
no  appreciation  for  the  clarionet  herself,  she  as- 
sumed his  life  was  a  lonely  one.  She  had  never 
met  anyone  who  liked  the  clarionet,  and  suspected 
he  had  not  met  many  himself,  whereas  everyone 


Lunch  at  Wrigglesworth's        267 

loved  the  violin.  Why  did  some  men  choose  the 
clarionet,  the  bassoon  or  the  oboe,  when  there  were 
such  instruments  as  the  violin  and  the  'cello?  That 
thought,  with  the  moment  of  sympathy  for  Mr. 
Quirk  hurried  in  the  crowd  of  impressions  across 
her  mind.  John  would  tell  her.  She  left  it  in  con- 
fidence at  that  as  they  went  in  to  lunch. 

It  was  always  a  good  meal  at  Wrigglesworth's 
and  that  day  in  the  shortest  space  of  time  put  them 
all  at  their  ease.  Matteo,  conscious  that  it  was 
costing  half-a-crown  a  head,  at  least,  set  out  from 
the  very  beginning  with  the  intention  of  doing  it 
justice,  while  Charles  Henry,  perceiving  boiled 
silverside  with  dumplings  and  roly-poly  to  follow  on 
the  menu,  tucked  his  serviette  inside  his  collar  to 
preserve  that  coat  his  old  woman  had  ironed  and 
sat  himself  squarely  on  his  chair. 

"I  believe  it  isn't  considered  the  proper  thing  to 
talk  about  food,"  he  said,  "but  I  must  confess  I 
like  silverside  and  dumplin'  with  roly-poly  to  fol- 
low. I  can't  play  on  a  meal  like  that — not  directly 
after,  I  can't.  But  the  next  day,  somehow,  I  feel 
it's  put  heart  into  me." 

Receiving  a  glance  from  John,  he  subsided. 
There  was  no  knowing  what  Charles  Henry  might 
say.  He  was  an  honest  man,  as  has  been  seen,  un- 
ashamed of  the  occasional  indignities  of  his  pro- 
fession. And  if  ever  there  were  a  situation  in  which 
an  honest  man  could  not  be  trusted,  it  was  that  in 
which  they  found  themselves  this  critical  morning 
at  Wrigglesworth's. 

Matteo — as  they  say  in  these  days  of  jerry-build- 


268      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

ing — was  as  safe  as  a  house.  There  was  no  fear 
of  him.  Unscrupulous  to  a  degree,  he  could  be 
trusted  to  give  the  very  best  impression  available. 
While  Charles  Henry  consumed  his  silverside  and 
his  dumplings  in  silence,  Allievi  talked  of  the  ro- 
mances of  his  pupils.  There  was  some  romance, 
he  declared,  with  every  one.  He  could  not  teach, 
he  could  not  live  without  it. 

It  all  became  a  huge  success,  moreover  full  of 
laughter  to  John  who,  in  a  capacity  of  his  own, 
could  stand  aside  and  look  on  at  Charles  Henry's 
restraint  over  the  food  he  was  enjoying  no  less  than 
Matteo's  bewildering  conceit  of  his  attractions. 

And  once  those  eccentricities  of  all  artists  were 
accepted  by  Jill,  she  enjoyed  herself  as  well  as  any 
of  them.  This  was  a  sense  of  liberty  she  had  never 
enjoyed  in  her  life  before,  this  meal  with  three  men 
in  a  little  eating  bouse  where  the  very  atmosphere 
seemed  to  give  you  freedom  to  say  what  you  liked 
and  being  on  your  best  behavior  was  not  a  thing 
that  even  occurred  to  you. 

There  was  a  contact  with  life  about  it  she  never 
experienced  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace.  Every 
moment  of  the  conversation,  she  felt  she  was  learn- 
ing something  fresh.  The  conversations  at  their 
dinners  at  home  never  varied.  It  never  seemed  to 
be  what  people  said,  but  what  you  knew  they  were 
repeating,  that  had  a  spark  of  interest  in  it.  What 
they  thought  of  this  play  or  that,  this  latest  novel, 
that  last  show  at  the  Academy,  these  were  all 
opinions  that  had  the  essence  of  staleness  in  them 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  scarcely  ever  did  you 


Lunch  at  Wrigglesworth's       269 

seem  to  hear  an  opinion  first  hand.  Every  word 
that  was  spoken,  every  idea  expressed  had  the  taste 
of  a  substitute  about  it,  was  never  fresh  food  stimu- 
lating the  mind  to  energy. 

But  here,  in  this  eating  house,  her  mother  would 
have  shuddered  at  and  her  father  condemned  as 
no  fit  place  for  any  lady,  here  in  the  company  of 
two  at  least  of  the  oddest  of  men,  Jill  felt  she  was 
touching  life  at  every  point,  was  being  admitted  into 
the  inner  places  where  people  had  lives  of  their 
own  and,  when  they  spoke  gave  expression  to  that 
which  had  entered  their  hearts  and  not  been  driven 
in  through  their  ears. 

Matteo  Allievi,  the  violinist,  for  all  his  conceits 
and  his  boastings,  was  a  real  man.  Obviously  from 
all  he  told  them,  he  had  met  life  and  had  his 
struggle  with  it.  And  Charles  Henry  with  his  child- 
like admission  that  he  knew  it  was  not  the  proper 
thing  to  talk  of  food,  yet  ignoring  propriety  because 
it  was  so  good,  he  was  as  human  as  any  of  them. 

Why  should  one  not  talk  of  good,  honest  food 
any  more  than  one  talked  of  the  price  one  had  paid 
for  one's  motor  car?  For  this  was  what  her  father 
did,  and  before  he  had  actually  purchased  it  with 
someone  else's  money? 

Why — a  whole  host  of  things  and  then,  suddenly, 
tumbling  back  into  her  memory,  why  did  some  men 
choose  to  play  the  bassoon  or  the  oboe? 

"Because,"  said  John,  "Life's  a  full  orchestra 
and  must  have  every  instrument  it  needs." 

"Because,"  said  Allievi,  "the  violin  would  not 
produce  the  melody  to  advantage  without  the  ac- 


270      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

companiment  of  those  instruments  and  therefore 
it  is  only  natural." 

"Because,"  said  Charles  Henry,  swallowing  his 
piece  of  dumpling  after  he  had  bitten  it  thirty  times 
and  without  any  knowledge  of  the  precept  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  "because  some  men  have  to  be  content 
with  what  you  might  call  the  littleness  of  life;  be- 
cause some  men  are  made  to  carry  off  the  big  things 
— they've  got  the  air  for  it."  He  waved  his  hand 
across  the  table  to  Matteo.  "Like  my  friend  here. 
Some  men  are  meant  to  play  the  solos  for  every- 
one to  hear,  while  others  play  a  note  here  and  there 
like,  but  if  they  get  the  right  person" — he  included 
John  and  Jill  in  a  romantic  and  comprehensive 
glance — "that  person'll  hear  every  note  they  play 
and  it'll  sound  grand — grand!  Little  as  it  is,  it'll 
sound  grand!" 

It  was  all  a  most  successful  entertainment  and  the 
witnesses  were  accepted  without  further  question. 

Jill  drove  away  in  her  hansom  with  the  three 
of  them  standing  on  the  curbstone  lifting  their  hats 
and  it  was  only  when  she  entered  the  door  of  the 
house  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace  that  she  began 
to  wonder  whether  or  no  the  world  were  upside 
down. 


Chapter    XLII:     TA    Consultation    with 
Margaret 

JOHN  had  never  outgrown  that  sense  of  being 
excited  by  the  receipt  of  a  letter  which  agitates 
all  young  people.  No  doubt,  he  was  suffi- 
ciently accustomed  to  receiving  them  as  to  have 
lost  the  sense  of  intrigue  such  as  a  schoolgirl  has, 
home  for  the  holidays,  when  she  receives  a  letter 
from  one  of  her  school-friends. 

That  letter,  so  to  speak,  is  taken  into  a  corner, 
opened  while  covert  glances  are  cast  in  all  direc- 
tions, in  order  to  make  sure  that  nobody  is  looking, 
but  that  everybody  sees.  It  is  read  with  puckered 
brows  and  serious  expressions  and  finally  put  away 
in  a  writing  case  that  has  a  key  about  the  size  of 
a  bent  hair-pin.  And  the  writing  case  is  locked. 

Doubtless  John  had  lost  these  feelings  about 
letters.  A  couple  of  bills  are  enough  to  knock  all 
the  romance  of  letter  writing  and  receiving  into  a 
cocked  hat  with  most  of  us.  However  he,  at  least, 
had  never  lost  the  romance. 

A  day  without  something  by  post  was  to  him  a 
day  ill-begun;  it  was  a  day  without  its  message. 

For  that  was  what  letters  were  to  him — messages 
— and  sometimes  of  the  most  disagreeable  nature. 
Nevertheless  they  were  messages  with  all  the  ad- 

271 


272      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

venture  of  a  journey  about  them.  Most  of  us  lose 
that  sense  of  wonder  at  a  piece  of  paper  traveling 
unerringly  from  one  hand  to  another  across  the 
whole  breadth  of  the  world  if  need  be.  Most  of  us 
lose  the  sense  of  wonder  in  everything  when  we 
pay  for  its  performance.  Indeed  we  lose  all  the 
wonder  out  of  life,  partly  because  it  is  not  con- 
sidered intelligent  to  be  surprised  at  anything,  partly 
because  an  intellectual  understanding  is  a  line  of 
least  resistance  and  so  much  easier  than  belief. 

John  kept  his  belief  and  it  must  be  admitted  he 
had  as  yet  experienced  little  to  test  it.  He  still 
wondered  when  he  received  a  check  in  payment  for 
his  work.  He  still  wondered  at  his  own  importance 
when  he  received  a  letter. 

His  habit  it  always  was  to  open  his  mail  in  what 
he  imagined  to  be  the  sequence  of  its  interest.  He 
always  cut  the  flap  of  the  envelope  with  a  knife  as 
an  exercise  in  self-control. 

On  the  morning  after  the  lunch  at  Wriggles- 
worth's,  there  were  two  letters  on  his  plate  at  break- 
fast. One  from  Jill.  He  put  that  on  one  side.  The 
other  was  addressed  to  him  in  an  unknown  hand- 
writing. He  looked  at  the  postmark.  It  was  Ken- 
sington. Some  instinct  stirred  and  turned  in  his  mind 
like  a  sleeper  awakening.  He  felt  his  fingers  more 
alive  as  he  took  it  out  of  its  envelope.  He  spread 
it  out  and  read  its  contents: 

DEAR  SIR, 

I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  your  acquaintance,  but  I  know 
there  is  a  mutual  interest  between  my  daughter  and  yourself. 
With  regard  to  this  interest  I  should  be  much  obliged  if  you 


A  Consultation  with  Margaret    273 

could  come  and  see  me  this  morning  at  the  above  address  at  mid- 
day— if  that  is  convenient  to  you.  If  it  is  not,  perhaps  you  will 
be  good  enough  to  make  another  appointment. 

Yours  truly, 

J.  M.  DEALTRY. 

There  was  a  note  in  this  letter  which  to  John 
was  unmistakable,  a  combative  note  wh'ch  told  him 
that  in  this  new  world  of  reality  he  had  entered 
there  was  conflict  and  stress. 

That  letter  had  in  it  the  sound  of  a  bugle,  calling 
him  out  to  fight;  and  it  was  not  that  he  was  afraid, 
but  that  he  suddenly  was  conscious  he  had  never 
had  to  fight  before.  He  felt  ill-equipped,  like  a 
soldier  with  nothing  but  his  bare  fists  who  must 
go  out  and  face  all  the  murderous  instruments  of 
war.  And  though  his  love  of  Jill  was  a  band  that 
played  him  with  its  inspiring  music  into  the  battle, 
he  felt  suddenly  that  when  it  came  to  the  actual 
fighting,  the  noise  of  the  blows  might  be  so  loud 
as  to  drown  the  music  in  his  ears;  that  there  were 
things  in  this  world  that  loomed,  with  a  forced 
perspective,  bigger  than  love  and,  at  the  moment  of 
conflict  swept  Love  out,  not  in  reality — but  for  the 
time  being  in  the  hearts  of  them  that  fought. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  all  that  was  in  his  heart 
was  not  a  weapon  but  only  a  purpose  of  his  spirit, 
and  had  no  power  against  the  highly  efficient  and 
modern  weapons  of  expediency.  He  believed  in 
some  inner  consciousness  that  he  would  be  killed, 
but  that  the  purpose  in  him  would  not  be  beaten. 
He  knew,  in  the  bugle  call  of  that  letter,  that  the 
whole  army  of  materialism  had  been  called  forth 


274      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

to  meet  him  and  that  nothing  but  the  miracle  of 
God  would  bring  him  out  unscathed  and  victorious 
from  the  fray. 

In  a  daze  of  mind,  he  turned  to  Jill's  letter  and 
read  it.  It  was  a  hurried  note,  every  word  spelling 
apprehension  and  warning  him  of  this  which  had 
become  an  accomplishjd  fact. 

"//  he  does  send  for  you,"  her  note  ended,  "don't 
get  angry  or  say  anything  that'll  make  it  more  diffi- 
cult. Humor  him  and  give  in  a  bit  here  and  there — 
it's  the  only  way." 

If  Mr.  Dealtry's  letter  had  brought  him  to  a 
sudden  and  serious  consideration  of  life,  this,  though 
far  it  may  have  been  from  her  intention,  struck  fear 
deep  down  into  the  corners  of  his  heart. 

She  was  urging  for  compromise  when  it  seemed 
to  him  there  was  nothing  but  the  bloodiest  of  en- 
counters to  achieve  decision.  It  was  as  though  she 
had  put  into  his  hand  at  the  last  moment  a  weapon 
he  neither  had  the  cunning  nor  the  heart  to  wield; 
a  weapon  he  believed  would  buckle  like  a  piece  of 
tin  at  the  first  straight  blow  that  fell  upon  it. 

With  a  sigh  of  despair,  he  put  her  letter  away 
and  went  out  without  touching  his  breakfast. 

Some  impulse  he  did  not  try  to  follow,  brought 
him  to  Margaret  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields. 

The  tender  look  in  her  face,  the  protection  of 
her  arms  about  those — others — brought  back  some 
of  the  courage  he  needed. 

"Margaret,"  he  said  in  a  voice  that  was  aloud 
to  him,  "Margaret,  I  know  something  I  didn't 
know  before.  I  know  that  I'm  alone.  I  know 


A  Consultation  with  Margaret    275 

that  even  with  all  the  gift  of  your  life  to  help 
others,  your  arms  can't  stretch  round  me." 

He  looked  at  her  and  always  she  gave  that  tender 
smile  to  her — others ;  to  her  John  and  her  Peter,  as 
he  and  Jill  had  christened  two  of  them. 

"Will — she  ever  come,"  he  went  on,  as  though 
Margaret  were  listening  to  every  word  he  said. 
"Will  she  ever  come  so  close  with  her  hand  in  mine 
and  her  arms  like  yours,  so  that  we  can  go  together 
— heart  and  soul  and  body  together — or  must  it 
always  be  alone?  Is  it  best  to  be  alone?" 

But  Margaret  gave  no  answer,  unless  it  were  in 
the  seeming  movement  of  a  little  further  stretching 
out  her  arms,  of  taking  one  of  the  others  a  heart's 
beat  nearer  to  her  breast. 


Chapter  XLIII :    The  Primitive  Instinct 

A~  the  door  was  thrown  open  and  John  entered 
the  hall  in  the  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace, 
there  was  a  swift  brush  of  skirts  from  an 
adjacent  door  and  Jill  was  beside  him. 

"I  don't  expect  he'll  allow  you  to  see  me,"  she 
whispered,  "but  I  must — I  must!  I  know  he'll  say 
horrible  things — horrible  and  cruel  things — but  I 
must  see  you !  I  don't  think  any  of  the  things  he'll 
say.  Believe  that.  I  know  I  don't  think  them." 

She  had  a  note  in  her  voice  convincing  herself 
as  well  as  him,  but  it  was  all  too  confused  for  him 
to  catch  it  then. 

"I'll  come  down  to  Fetter  Lane  to-morrow  morn- 
ing," said  she,  "then  you  can  tell  me  everything. 
To-morrow  morning  at  1 1  o'clock." 

That  was  all.  She  had  gone  through  the  door- 
way again  and  he  was  being  led  down  the  hall  to 
a  far  room  which,  with  its  very  distance,  increased 
the  apprehension  of  all  that  lay  before  him.  But 
he  believed  he  was  not  alone.  He  had  asked  Mar- 
garet and  she  had  given  him  no  answer.  It  was  Jill 
who,  unasked,  had  replied  to  his  question.  It  was 
not  best  to  be  alone.  She  was  with  him. 

The  servant  whom  he  assumed  must  have  been 
in  Jill's  confidence,  since  she  did  not  hesitate  to 

276 


The  Primitive  Instinct  277 

speak  before  her,  ushered  him  into  Mr.  Dealtry's 
study,  announcing  his  name. 

The  door  closed  behind  him.  He  heard  it  shut 
him  in.  Then  he  became  aware  of  two  people,  both 
of  whom  rose  to  their  feet.  Mr.  Dealtry  came  for- 
ward and  held  out  his  hand  in  that  manner  as  gave 
John  to  understand  that  a  public  school  and  the 
university  had  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  be 
anything  but  a  gentleman. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Grey,"  said  he,  and  then: 
"This  is  my  wife." 

Mrs.  Dealtry  bowed  and  sat  down.  A  chair  was 
pulled  out  for  John.  They  all  sat  down. 

"I  won't  beat  about  the  bush,  Mr.  Grey,"  Mr. 
Dealtry  began,  using  the  phrase  and  adopting  the 
tone  of  voice  which  gives  a  guarantee  that  a  man 
knows  his  own  mind  while  it  does  not  absolutely 
constitute  a  hall-mark. 

"I  won't  beat  about  the  bush.  I  said  in  my  letter 
that  I  knew  there  was  a  mutual  interest  between 
my  daughter  and  yourself.  That  is  so — isn't  it?" 

"It  is,"  said  John. 

Mr.  Dealtry  picked  up  a  paper  from  his  desk. 
John  recognized  it  at  once. 

"May  I  ask,"  said  he,  showing  it  to  John,  "if 
this  fairly  expresses  the  state  and  the — what  shall 
I  say?"  ' 

"Spirit,"  said  Mrs.  Dealtry. 

"Yes — the  spirit  of  that  interest  which  you 
admit?" 

John  looked  at  it  once.  It  was  the  poem  he  had 
read  and  given  her  in  the  Zoo. 


278      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"  Let's  take  it  you  and  I  in  lingering  fingers 
And  turn  it  to  beauty  out  of  the  virgin  gold." 

Just  that  couplet  brought  itself  to  his  eye  and 
then  he  looked  back  at  Mr.  Dealtry. 

"It  does  express  the  spirit,"  he  replied,  "of  what 
I  feel  about  her." 

Mr.  Dealtry  spread  it  out  upon  the  table  before 
him  and  for  a  moment  allowed  his  eye  to  wander 
critically  over  the  lines.  There  was  a  poignant 
silence.  It  was  in  that  silence  John  realized  he  was 
stronger  than  either  of  them.  He  was  not  alone. 
They  thought  they  had  him  there  at  their  mercy. 
But  they  were  wrong.  They  could  not  see  inside 
his  heart  and  Jill  was  there. 

Presently  Mr.  Dealtry  looked  up. 

"I'm  not  a  judge  of  poetry,"  said  he,  "but  I  am 
sure  in  a  world  of  pretty  fancy  and  flowery  imagina- 
tion, this  is  quite — quite  pleasing  to  read.  It — it 
has  a  swing  about  it." 

"Not  much  swing,"  said  John.  "The  meter's  all 
over  the  shop.  It's  not  meant  to  sing  you  to  sleep; 
it's  meant  to  give  you  a  thought." 

"Well — I  accept  your  technical  criticism  of  it, 
but  naturally  enough  I  haven't  sent  for  you  to  learn 
your  verses  or  anything  about  them  except  in  so 
much  as  they  affect  my  daughter.  And  you  confirm 
your  previous  admission  that  these  verses  embody 
the  spirit  of  what  you  feel  about  her.  You  say 
they  are  intended  to  give  thoughts.  They  were  then 
intended  to  make  her  think  and  think  what  they 
conveyed  was  true." 

"Certainly." 


The  Primitive  Instinct  279 

"You  think,  then,  it  is  a  practical  view  of  life 
to  make  it  a  woodland  freshet — I  suppose  that's 
a  stream — where  the  mosses  grow?" 

There  was  an  instant  when  John  would  have  left 
the  room  without  another  word.  He  did  not  betray 
the  impulse.  He  sat  there  rigid  in  his  silence  for 
a  moment. 

"Are  you  taking  that  literally?"  asked  John 
presently,  "or  are  you  allowing  for  the  freedom  of 
the  picture  intended  to  convey  the  thought?" 

"I'm  taking  it  as  I  read  it,"  said  Mr.  Dealtry. 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  John,  "that  is  liable  to 
confuse  me,  since  I  don't  know  either  the  quality 
of  your  intelligence  or  your  imagination." 

"I  hope  both  are  quite  normal,"  said  Mr.  Dealtry. 

"I  hope  so,"  replied  John. 

Mr.  Dealtry  looked  at  him  sharply,  then  across 
at  his  wife.  Mrs.  Dealtry  turned  away  as  though 
she  had  made  up  her  mind  that  no  good  could  come 
of  this  interview.  In  those  first  few  moments  she 
had  summed  up  their  visitor,  had  placed  and 
weighed  him  in  her  own  scales.  He  was  one  of 
those  having  no  appreciation  or  value  of  the  homely 
virtue  of  common  sense.  He  was  an  idealist,  the 
most  dangerous  of  all  people  a  young  girl  can  meet. 
Unless  they  were  very  careful,  their  Jill  would  not 
steer  through  this  dangerous  passage  of  her  life. 
For  here  was  a  type  of  man  with  failure  stamped 
in  every  expression  of  his  face. 

She  had  met  one  or  two  successful  novelists  at 
various  At  Homes  and  they  none  had  that  look 
about  them.  They  probably  stood  in  queer  attitudes 


280      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

and,  when  they  talked,  spoke  as  though  they  ex- 
pected to  be  listened  to.  Often  they  said  daring 
and  what  sounded  like  clever  things — but  they  knew 
the  best  people. 

This  young  man,  so  she  had  appraised  him,  would 
never  be  successful,  unless  by  some  amazing  freak 
of  chance,  and  she  did  not  count  upon  those  in  any 
sane  view  of  life.  He  would  go  through  the  world 
like  a  pedlar,  with  holes  in  his  shoes  and  a  bundle 
of  ideals  in  his  pack.  He  would  only  sell  his  work 
to  romantic  and  foolish  folk.  Never  would  he  make 
a  trade  in  the  open  market  where  her  England  had 
achieved  its  greatness. 

Unless  her  husband  spoke  more  to  the  point  and 
very  soon,  she  felt  she  would  be  unable  to  keep 
the  dignity  of  her  silence  much  longer. 

"Well — going  on,"  continued  Mr.  Dealtry,  when 
he  had  satisfied  himself  that  it  was  still  to  be  his 
innings,  "going  on  past  these  people  treading  un- 
relenting presses  and  a  picture  of  you  plunging  your 
face  in  the  water — I  suppose  you  imply  by  that,  just 
drinking  water — and  so  on,  not  particularly  refer- 
ring to  this  listening  to  blackbirds  in  what  you  call 
the  cathedraled  sky,  we  come  to  this  verse: 

Is  life  the  finer  hammered  on  an  anvil? 

Flung  in  the  furnace?     Hastened  to  shape  within  the  mold? 
Let's  take  it  you  and  I  in  lingering  fingers 

And  turn  it  to  beauty  out  of  the  virgin  gold. 

"As  a  matter  of  curiosity,  I  should  just  like  to 
know  where,  if  you  don't  want  to  do  a  bit  of  hard 
work  with  a  hammer,  if  you're  so  averse  to  being 
hastened  into  shape,  I  should  like  to  know  where 


The  Primitive  Instinct  281 

you're  going  to  get  your  gold  from?  No  man  I 
ever  came  across,  made  money  without  doing  some 
work  for  it.  Where  are  you  going  to  get  your 
gold?" 

It  sounded  to  him  as  he  put  the  question,  the 
biggest  crux  of  a  question  it  was  possible  to  put. 
He  had  to  do  all  he  knew  not  to  chuckle  as  he 
said  it. 

John's  reply  was  such  a  surprise  to  him  that  he 
gave  up  his  innings,  and  was  very  doubtful  as  to 
whether  he  had  succeeded  in  carrying  his  bat. 

"I'm  sure  you  didn't  ask  me  here  to  criticise  my 
verses  on  their  literary  merit,"  said  John.  "In  fact, 
from  all  the  bewildering  things  you  have  said,  I  am 
quite  certain  that  is  the  case.  I'm  convinced  you're 
aware  of  the  fact  that  you  don't  know  the  differ- 
ence between  a  line  of  verse  and  the  directions  on 
a  medicine  bottle,  so  aren't  we  wasting  time  a  bit 
by  talking  of  my  poetry,  because  you  make  me 
naturally  quite  incapable  of  discussing  it.  And  if 
there  is  to  be  a  discussion  about  Jill,  I'd  like  to  keep 
my  wits  and  my  temper  somewhat  about  me." 

Mr.  Dealtry  stared  at  John  in  a  mute  astonish- 
ment. He  could  not  speak.  He  did  not  even  try 
to.  Was  this  intended  to  be  an  affront,  he  asked 
himself,  because  if  it  were,  then  he  ought  to  say 
something  in  reply.  But  he  had  nothing  to  say. 
He  thought  he  had  been  making  such  remarkable 
headway  in  a  difficult  situation  and  here  was  all 
the  wind  taken  out  of  his  sails.  He  felt  in  just  that 
flabby  condition  as  when  the  canvas  droops  against 
the  mast  in  a  lull  of  the  breeze. 


282      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Further,  to  convince  him  what  a  failure  he  had 
made  of  it,  his  wife  took  the  matter  completely  out 
of  his  hands. 

"Mr.  Grey's  quite  right,"  said  she  with  austerity. 
"We  did  not  bring  him  here  to  discuss  his  poetry. 
Whether  it's  good  or  bad  doesn't  make  any  differ- 
ence. The  principal  fact  is  that  it  does  not  provide 
a  living — so  I  understand  from  people  who  know 
about  these  things — and  it  has  been  brought  to  our 
notice  that  Mr.  Grey  is  proposing  to  marry  Jill, 
proposing  to  marry  her  when,  judging  by  the  place 
in  which  he  resides,  he  is  scarcely  able  to  provide 
a  living  for  himself.  Would  you  mind  telling  us, 
Mr.  Grey,  what  your  income  is?  I've  no  doubt  to 
you  this  sounds  very  matter-of-fact,  but  it  is  the 
duty  of  parents  to  see  that  their  children  set  out 
in  a  difficult  world  with  the  best  advantages.  We 
don't  want  to  appear  curious,  but  we  should  like  to 
hear  what  your  income  is." 

"I'm  making  a  hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds 
a  year,"  said  John.  "And  next  year  I  shall  make 
more  and  the  year  after  still  more.  With  Jill  to 
help  me  and  give  me  a  purpose  in  life,  I  can't  fail. 
You're  quite  right.  Poetry  doesn't  pay.  But  I  don't 
only  write  verse.  I'm  writing  books  and  short 
stories." 

"A  hundred  and  seventy-five  pounds  a  year,"  re- 
peated Mrs.  Dealtry,  as  though  every  other  word 
John  had  said  had  escaped  her.  "Dear,  oh,  dear — 
I  wouldn't  have  believed  it  possible  for  a  man  with 
any  sense  of  chivalry  or  honor  to  propose  to  take 
a  girl  away  from  the  comfort  of  her  home  to  endure 


The  Primitive  Instinct  283 

such  poverty  as  that.  I — simply — I  couldn't  have 
believed  it." 

She  was  so  convinced  of  what  she  said  that  all 
those  sensations  of  being  a  cad  returned  in  over- 
whelming force  to  John's  mind.  Here  was  the  weak 
spot  in  his  armor  and  with  the  inspiration  of  a 
mother's  instinct,  she  had  detected  it.  She  loved 
Jill  and  she  was  fighting  for  her,  and  what  she,  in 
her  generation,  had  found  to  be  happiness,  she  was 
determined  that  Jill,  in  her  generation  should  have 
as  well. 

What  her  intellect  was  utterly  incapable  of  ap- 
preciating was  that  happiness  was  no  fixed  or  con- 
crete thing,  but  that  it  changed  with  every  genera- 
tion and  even  then  was  not  the  same  in  any  two 
minds  at  once. 

It  was  in  reality  her  own  conception  of  happiness 
she  was  fighting  for,  as  much  as  for  Jill.  She  did 
not  know  the  things  she  believed  in  were  rotten  to 
the  core.  She  believed  in  them — that  was  enough. 
She  had  believed  in  them  all  her  life.  She  was 
the  product  of  a  material  Civilization.  It  had  given 
her  nationality  in  the  wealthiest  country  in  the  world. 
It  had  given  her  a  home  in  the  Prince  of  Wales's 
Terrace.  It  had  given  her  a  circle  of  acquaintances 
amongst  the  best  people,  many  with  titles.  All 
these  things  it  had  given  her  and,  in  the  drought 
of  her  heart,  she  had  accepted  them  as  tangible 
symbols  of  happiness,  as  tangible  as  the  comfort  of 
a  hot  bath. 

She  was  proud  to  belong  to  that  Civilization. 
She  was  proud  to  be  an  Englishwoman  and  though 


284      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

she  might  assist  her  husband  in  his  efforts  to  cheat 
the  Income  tax,  she  certainly  would  not  forfeit  her 
rights  to  real  English  happiness. 

It  was  this  happiness  she  was  fighting  for,  on 
Jill's  behalf,  and  fighting  with  all  the  craft  and  cun- 
ning of  which  her  mother's  heart  was  capable.  Jill 
must  be  happy  and  whether  this  young  man  was  a 
great  poet  or  not,  whether  or  no  it  were  true  that 
Jill  could  help  him  in  his  work,  she  would  hate  him 
and  all  he  did  if  it  added  one  iota  to  the  strength 
she  needed  for  the  conflict. 

There  had  entered  her  heart,  the  moment  she 
heard  him  speak,  the  moment  she  saw  his  face,  that 
instinctive  hatred  of  the  mother  for  every  creature 
that  threatens  to  deprive  her  of  her  young.  She 
knew  she  could  take  a  keen  pleasure  in  torturing 
John's  heart  if,  by  the  pain  of  it,  he  could  be  induced 
to  let  go  his  hold  on  Jill.  Nothing  he  suffered  could 
wring  pity  from  her.  She  would  have  laughed  and 
jeered  at  his  tears  had  he  shed  them.  And  the  more 
she  felt  this  enmity — an  unreasoned,  elemental  in- 
stinct in  her — the  more  she  lost  what  little  appre- 
ciation she  had  of  the  thing  that  might  be  happiness 
to  Jill. 

She  had  indeed  reverted  to  a  distant  type.  All 
the  higher  and  nobler  qualities  of  understanding 
were  swept  out  of  her  mind  with  the  passion  of 
this  primitive  emotion.  Yet  she  spoke  with  a  quiet- 
ness that  was  remarkable  in  its  distinction  from  the 
blustering  tones  of  her  husband. 

John  might  almost  have  thought  she  was  sorry 
for  the  struggle  he  had  with  life.  She  purred  her 


The  Primitive  Instinct  285 

words.  She  looked  softly  as  she  spoke.  There  was 
a  note  of  tender  complaint  in  her  voice. 

When  she  added  that  last  phrase:  "I  simply 
couldn't  have  believed  it,"  she  glanced  at  him  almost 
with  pity  in  her  expression  and,  seeing  the  iron  enter 
his  heart,  was  all  the  time  rejoicing  in  her  soul  and 
crying  out  to  herself  what  a  soft-hearted  fool  he 
was. 

As  unused  to  craft  and  guile  as  John  must  be 
supposed  to  have  been,  there  can  scarcely  exist  any 
wonder  that  he  was  no  match  for  the  stealth  of 
such  an  opponent  as  Mrs.  Dealtry.  All  he  had  were 
his  ideals  and  no  sophistry  with  which  to  match 
them  against  the  wiles  of  his  antagonist. 

"What  is  it  your  daughter  is  really  going  to 
suffer,"  he  asked  in  reply,  "if  she  gives  up  the  com- 
fort of  her  home  here  to  come  out,  side  by  side, 
with  a  man  she  loves  and  fight  for  her  place  in  the 
world  with  him?  A  man  has  to  do  it  when  he 
strikes  out  into  life  for  himself.  He  has  to  give 
up  comforts  he  had  at  home.  I  was  comfortable 
at  home  once  with  parents  who  cared  for  me.  And 
no  doubt  I  suffered  bodily  discomforts  when  I  began 
to  make  my  way — but  I  should  have  been  a  deal 
more  uncomfortable  in  my  mind  if  I'd  stayed.  Why 
should  your  daughter  suffer  more  than  me  ?  She  will 
have  some  one  at  her  side  with  love  to  give  her. 
I  had  no  one." 

"I  won't  comment,"  said  Mrs.  Dealtry  gently, 
"on  the  selfishness  and  egotism  of  what  you  are 
saying.  I  am  sure  you  have  the  power  to  appreciate 
a  virtue  when  you  see  it.  I  will  only  confine  myself 


286      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

to  an  answer  to  your  question.  The  discomfort  my 
daughter  will  suffer  will  arise  out  of  the  fact  that 
she  is  used  to  a  home  like  this  and  not  a  couple  of 
rooms  in  what  I  might  call  the  slums  of  London." 

"There  are  people,"  said  John,  "who  are  used 
to  receiving  twenty  per  cent  for  their  investments — 
but  that  doesn't  say  it's  right  and  it  doesn't  say  it's 
good  for  them." 

"I  should  like  to  know,"  said  Mr.  Dealtry, 
"where  people  are  getting  their  twenty  per  cent." 

"We'll  keep  business  out  of  this  discussion,"  said 
his  wife,  who  was  determined  the  talk  should  be 
of  things  she  understood.  "Mr.  Grey's  allusion  to 
speculation  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  affair — noth- 
ing at  all." 

Suddenly  then,  John  saw  red.  His  heart  came 
into  his  mouth  and  he  spoke  it,  without  thought  of 
consequence,  without  consideration  of  cost  or  ex- 
pediency. 

"But  it's  all  to  do  with  speculation  1"  he  cried. 
"You're  speculating  with  your  daughter's  happiness 
— gambling  with  it.  You  want  to  marry  her  to  a 
rich  man.  You  want  her  to  get  her  twenty  per 
cent  out  of  life  by  a  doubtful  investment.  You 
don't  ask  yourselves  really  whether  she  is  going  to 
be  happy  in  that  speculation,  but  just  that  she  should 
get  her  twenty  per  cent  without  working  for  it.  But 
it's  work  that  is  the  happiness  in  this  world  and  the 
idle  speculator  drawing  his  fat  dividends  is  wretched 
in  his  heart.  He  doesn't  know  what  happiness  is. 
It's  happiness  to  make  your  life,  not  to  sit  in  idle- 
ness and  have  it  made  for  you.  You  want  for  her 


The  Primitive  Instinct  287 

the  clothes  she  can  put  on  her  back,  the  money  she 
can  put  in  her  purse,  you  don't  want  the  joy  she 
can  put  in  her  heart.  These  things — the  things  you 
say  she's  used  to — are  not  the  things  that  make 
joy.  They  all  contribute  to  a  sense  of  staleness  in 
life  if  you're  used  to  them.  That's  what  you  make 
of  life.  You  make  it  stale.  You'd  have  everybody 
inherit  rather  than  earn.  You'd  give  them  the 
things  they're  used  to  rather  than  the  things  that 
are  new.  And  that's  just  the  way  people  and  na- 
tions and  whole  civilizations  and  religions  fag  them- 
selves out  to  degeneracy — because  they  catch  hold 
of  the  things  they're  used  to  rather  than  the  ad- 
venture and  the  health  of  the  things  that  are  new." 

He  stopped  for  breath  and,  as  he  looked  at  their 
two  faces  there  in  the  silence  of  that  room,  he  won- 
dered what  he  had  said  and  in  the  quiet,  subdued 
smile  of  triumph  on  Mrs.  Dealtry's  face,  he  real- 
ized that  so  far  as  they  were  concerned,  he  had 
lost  everything. 

"George,"  she  said  to  her  husband,  "you  might 
ring  the  bell  and  let  them  know  Mr.  Grey  is  going. 
I  think  you  understood  as  well  as  I  that  Mr.  Grey 
was  a  gentleman  at  least.  Hyde  Park  socialism 
probably  has  its  place,  but  it's  not  in  our  house,  nor 
from  the  way  we  have  brought  her  up  will  it  ever 
be  in  Jill's." 

John  stood  quickly  to  his  feet. 

"Does  this  mean  you  refuse  to  let  your  daughter 
marry  me?"  he  asked. 

"We  can't  refuse,"  said  Mrs.  Dealtry,  "she's  over 
twenty-one.  That  is  to  say  we  can't  prevent  her- 


288      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

It's  only  that  you've  made  so  much  easier  by  what 
you've  said,  the  advice  we  can  give  her  about  her 
future.  I  am  sure  you  will  realize,  Mr.  Grey,  that 
it  is  something  in  a  difficult  world  for  a  girl  to  cling 
to  the  belief  that  she  is  a  lady.  I  know  my  daughter 
will  always  be  that." 

The  door  opened.  It  remained  open.  They 
watched  him  all  the  way  across  the  hall  till  he  had 
gone.  He  had  no  sight  of  Jill. 


Chapter   XLIV:     Charles  Henry   Quirk 
&  Co. 

THERE  was  little  sleep  for  John  that  night; 
little  effort  indeed  on  his  part  to  induce  it. 
For  some  hours  after  he  had  gone  to  bed, 
he  sat  with  his  hands  huddled  up  against  his  chin, 
staring  at  the  wall  in  front  of  him,  on  which  hung 
a   little   reproduction   of   the  portrait   of   Beatrice 
d'Este  by  di  Predis. 

It  was  not  so  much  that  he  was  thinking  of  her. 
More  it  was,  almost  the  whole  of  that  time,  he  was 
thinking  of  nothing;  just  vibrative  to  countless  sen- 
sations, but  that  was  all.  With  his  eyes  he  saw  that 
familiar,  childish  face,  of  Beatrice  d'Este,  pale  with 
the  sudden  redness  of  its  lips,  a  little  tilt  at  the 
end  of  the  nose,  the  round  chin,  the  open  forehead, 
the  wonder  in  the  eye.  He  saw  the  full  color  of 
that  auburn  hair,  tied  in  a  ribband  beneath  her 
chin,  bound  with  a  fillet  about  her  head.  He  could 
see  the  firm,  straight  neck,  the  high  and  virtuous 
bodice  of  her  dress,  the  red  stone,  as  though  it  held 
the  secret  of  the  blood  that  was  warm  in  her  veins, 
that  lay  like  a  talisman  on  her  breast:  all  these 
things  he  could  see  as  he  sat  there  like  a  tailor  on 
his  bench,  but  in  the  consciousness  of  his  mind  there 
was  no  thought  of  her;  no  thought  of  Jill  or  of 

289 


290      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Amber,  or  the  scene  that  had  taken  place  that  morn- 
ing in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace. 

One  sensation  after  another  played  upon  the 
strings  of  the  instrument  of  his  mind.  All  impro- 
visations they  were;  never  once  the  thoughtfully- 
constructed  melody.  Without  prelude  they  came. 
Without  fulfillment  of  expression,  they  faded  away. 

He  could  not  think.  No  thoughts  were  with  him. 
All  that  he  felt  was,  in  the  abstract,  no  more 
than  senses  of  fear,  of  courage,  of  doubt,  of  belief, 
of  hope  and  then  despair.  He  did  not  know  what 
the  morrow  would  bring  him  and  he  neither  dared 
nor  was  he  able  to  come  at  knowledge  by  any  process 
of  thought. 

If  Jill  came  in  the  morning  as  she  had  promised, 
it  was  she  who  would  bring  revelation  and  set  free 
the  normal  operations  of  his  brain.  Until  then  he 
could  only  sit,  huddled  in  mind  and  body,  waiting 
for  the  hour  of  his  deliverance. 

He  ate  no  breakfast  the  next  morning.  In  this 
condition,  when  the  physical  and  definite  processes 
of  his  being  are  held  in  rigid  arrest,  food  is  not  so 
much  nauseous  to  a  man,  as  that  it  does  not  enter 
his  conception  of  necessity. 

John  told  Mrs.  Rowse  to  clear  away  the  things 
directly  he  came  in  from  his  bedroom  and  saw  that 
breakfast  was  there,  waiting  on  the  table. 

"Don't  you  feel  well,  then,  sir — or  something?" 

"I  feel  all  right,"  said  he,  and  looked  at  and 
straight  through  her,  which  gave  her  so  uncanny 
a  sensation  that  she  began  taking  up  the  breakfast 
things  without  another  word. 


Charles  Henry  Quirk  &  Co.    291 

She  recounted  this  incident  to  her  husband  who, 
when  he  was  sober,  sat  patiently,  as  men  do  with 
their  women-folk,  and  listened  to  a  bit  of  gossip 
just  as  though  she  had  been  reading  extracts  to 
him  out  of  the  Sunday  papers. 

"  'E  made  me  feel,"  said  Mrs.  Rowse,  "  'e  made 
me  feel  just  as  if  I'd  got  no  clothes.  Well — you'd  'a' 
thought  that  'ud  have  made  me  nervous,  uncom- 
fortable— wouldn't  yer?  It  didn't.  It  made  me 
feel  annoyed  at  first;  'cos  while  I  felt  I'd  got  no 
clothes  on,  there  'e  was  lookin'  as  though  'e  never 
noticed  it." 

Mrs.  Rowse  was  always  somewhat  complicated 
in  her  statements  and  descriptions.  Probably  some 
woman,  reading  this,  will  know  at  once  what  she 
meant,  and  with  some  man,  it  may  be  that  half-an- 
hour  afterwards,  while  he  is  buttoning  or  hooking 
up  his  wife's  dress  at  the  back,  he  will  suddenly 
give  vent  to  a  guffaw. 

Whatever  she  felt,  she  took  away  the  breakfast 
things  without  another  word  and  left  him  alone. 
Then,  punctually  at  eleven,  came  Jill. 

He  heard  the  sound  of  footsteps  up  the  stairs 
and  knew,  by  the  sudden  chill  that  followed  a  jerk 
in  his  heart,  that  they  were  Jill's.  But  he  could 
not  move  to  the  door.  He  stood  at  the  other  end 
of  the  room  by  his  desk  and  when  she  knocked, 
without  putting  forward  a  step,  he  called  out: 
"Come  in." 

She  entered;  closed  the  door  softly  behind  her, 
stood  there  silent  a  moment  while  his  eyes  for  the 
first  time  narrowed  to  reality  and  a  searching  glance. 


292      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

The  next  moment  she  was  across  the  room  and  in 
his  arms  crying  out: 

"You  do  love  me,  don't  you?  They  said  you 
didn't  love  me.  at  all;  that  you  were  just  selfishly 
trying  to  get  your  own  pleasure  and  had  no  thought 
of  my  happiness  at  all.  Say  you  love  me,  say  it — 
say  it — do  say  it  now." 

And  he  said  it  out  of  all  the  deepest  purpose  of 
his  heart  and  held  her  there  in  his  arms  for  a 
long  while,  kissing  her  cheek,  her  eyes,  her  fore- 
head, her  neck,  her  hair  and  feeling  he  could  wait 
for  months  when  life  was  even  greater  than  then 
to  kiss  her  lips. 

Still  holding  her  close  in  his  arms,  he  asked  her 
what  more  they  had  said  and  listened  to  the  im- 
pression he  had  made  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Ter- 
race. The  impression  it  was  of  witlessness,  of 
egotism,  of  insensibility  to  the  feelings  of  others 
and  all  the  accepted  standards  of  life. 

"They  think  you  want  to  marry  me  because — 
because — we're  better  off  and  it  may  help  you  to 
get  on  and  be  successful  with  your  work." 

He  laughed  but  did  not  let  her  go. 

"They  think,"  she  went  on,  "that  you're  a  menace 
to — these  are  their  words — to  all  that's  best  in 
English  life.  They  painted  for  me  all  the  squalor 
and  discomfort  of  the  life  I  should  have  with  you 
here — because  they  know  how  small  and  incon- 
venient it  is.  I  told  them  that." 

"You  told  them  that?"  said  John. 

"Yes— did  you  mind?" 

"No.     I  don't  mind." 


Charles  Henry  Quirk  6§f  Co.    293 

"They  said  I  should  be  miserable  in  a  few  months. 
They  more  or  less  said  what  Father  Peake  did  about 
children.  I  knew  they'd  do  that.  And  of  course 
they  think  your  selfishness  in  wanting  to  give  me  a 
life  like  that,  is — unspeakable.  Father  stands 
amazed  at  it.  He  says  he  didn't  think  men  could 
be " 

"What?" 

"Oh — I  forget  what  word  he  used." 

"No,  you  don't." 

"Yes— I  forget." 

"No — you  don't,  my  dear.  You  don't  forget. 
What  word  was  it?" 

"Such — such  cads,"  she  whispered,  and  felt  the 
solidity  of  ice  all  through  John's  body. 

"But  I  don't  care  what  they  say,"  she  went  on 
vehemently.  "I  don't  care.  I  want  love.  I  must 
have  love!"  And  she  clung  so  close  to  him  that 
he  felt  every  line  of  her  body  against  his  own. 

And  then,  as  they  stood  there,  his  arms  about 
her,  her  body  one  with  his,  there  came  the  sounds 
of  music  out  in  the  street  below.  It  was  an  old 
familiar  tune — a  tune  as  old  to  John  as  the  carpet 
with  its  inkstains,  as  old  as  the  marks  on  the  wall- 
paper where  pictures  had  been  hung  and  taken 
away: 

Come  lassies  and  lads 

Get  leave  of  your  dads 

And  away  to  the  May-pole  high. 

Yet  old  as  it  was,  there  was  something  new  about 
it  that  morning  which  arrested  him.  Not  only  was 


294      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

it  played  upon  the  clarionet.  The  notes  of  a  violin 
came  mingled  with  it  and  made  it  all  strange  in 
his  ears.  He  dropped  his  arms  gently  from  Jill's 
shoulders  and  he  went  to  the  window.  For  an  in- 
stant he  knew  nothing  but  surprise  and  then  laughter 
came  to  him  like  a  gush  of  water  from  a  stream 
that  had  been  dammed. 

There,  by  the  side  of  the  curbstone,  standing  in 
the  gutter,  were  Charles  Henry  Quirk  and  Matteo 
Allievi,  a  united  couple  in  the  business  of  life, 
amalgamating  their  efforts  to  produce  the  same  old 
tunes  for  the  pleasure  or  annoyance  of  their  fellow- 
men. 

Hearing  his  laughter,  Jill  was  on  the  moment 
at  his  side,  holding  his  arm  and  looking  down  into 
the  street  below. 

"Poor  old  Charles  Henry,"  said  John,  still  laugh- 
ing. "He'll  lose  all  his  fineness  of  distinction  now. 
That  Allievi  with  all  the  flourish  of  his  bow,  is 
only  a  charlatan  at  best.  He'll  destroy  the  honest 
art  of  Charles  Henry.  As  soon  as  he  finds  out 
where  the  bread  is  buttered,  he'll  take  Charles 
Henry  every  day  to  the  places  where  they  pay  him 
to  go  into  the  next  street.  Charles  Henry  won't 
be  playing  for  his  little  slaveys  on  the  doorsteps  any 
more.  I  suppose  it's  sad — but  it's  damned  funny!" 

He  looked  round  at  Jill  with  the  laughter  still 
in  his  eyes  and  found  her  face  pale  and  set,  as  far 
from  laughter  as  the  poles  are  sundered. 

"They're  the  men,"  she  said  in  a  breath. 

"Yes." 

"The  men  we  had  lunch  with?" 


Charles  Henry  Quirk  fef  Co.    295 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

"The  men  who  were  going  to  be  witnesses  to — 
to  our  marriage." 

"Yes,  I  know." 

His  throat  was  dry.  With  an  effort,  he  mois- 
tened it. 

"Then  they  aren't — really — good  musicians.  I 
— I  thought  they  played  in  Queen's  Hall — places 
like  that — I  didn't  know  they  played  in  the  gutter." 

John  took  a  deep  breath,  such  a  breath  as  a  man 
must  take  to  keep  the  courage  of  his  soul  when 
he  hears  the  sentence  of  death  passed  upon  him. 

He  reached  down  for  her  hand  and  led  her  away 
from  the  window.  Guiding  her  gently  by  her 
shoulders,  he  set  her  down  in  the  chair  in  which 
he  worked,  then  stood  before  her. 

"Jill,  my  dear,"  said  he  in  a  strange  voice. 
"You've  got  to  listen  to  every  word  I  say." 


Chapter  XLV :  Goldsmith's  Grave 

SHE  sat  in  his  chair  and  listened,  sometimes 
her  lip  quivering,  always  her  eyes  very  big 
and  soft  with  tears  that  had  not  gathered 
weight  to  fall. 

After  that  last  caress  conveyed  in  the  guiding  of 
her  shoulders  as  he  brought  her  to  the  chair,  John 
did  not  touch  her  again.  For  the  first  few  moments 
he  stood  with  his  back  to  the  fire-place,  never  mov- 
ing and  with  his  eyes  fixed  straight  before  him  as 
he  talked.  Later  he  came  away  from  that  place 
and  walked  up  and  down  the  room  as  words  came 
more  easily  to  be  said. 

"All  that  your  father  and  mother  told  you  yes- 
terday after  I'd  gone — everything  they  said  sounded 
cruel,  unsympathetic,  unjust,  didn't  it?"  This  was 
how  he  began,  standing  there  by  the  fire-place. 

She  just  inclined  her  head. 

"And  it's  hard  to  see  the  reason  and  the  com- 
mon-sense of  what  people  say  when  you  believe  them 
to  be  cruel  and  unjust — isn't  it?" 

Her  silence  admitted  that  to  be  true. 

"But  supposing  I  were  to  have  said  it  all,"  he 
went  on.  "Not  about  my  being  a  cad — not  about 
my  wanting  to  marry  you  to  improve  my  position, 
because  that  was  their  cruelty  and  injustice;  that 

296 


Goldsmith's  Grave  297 

was  how  they  destroyed  the  force  of  all  their  argu- 
ments. They  were  cads  to  have  said  it  and  nothing 
that  a  cad  says  sounds  true.  Supposing  I  were  to 
have  told  you  that  life  here  with  me  in  three  rooms, 
or  wherever  we  chose  to  live,  would  be  difficult  for 
you — a  struggle — a  beating  against  head-winds  and 
a  heavy  tide.  Supposing  I  were  to  have  pointed  out 
that  in  marrying  me,  you  would  have  inevitably  to 
take  part  in  that  struggle,  not  in  the  making  of 
money,  but  in  sharing,  cheerfully  and  with  a  sense 
of  laughter  at  life,  sharing  in  the  frequent  want 
of  it?" 

Suddenly  he  turned  for  the  first  time  and  looked 
at  her,  and  had  she  looked  at  him  she  would  have 
seen  he  had  suddenly  grown  old,  a  child  no  longer 
as  he  had  always  seemed,  even  in  his  appearance, 
but  an  old  man.  There  was  not  a  line  in  his  face 
to  indicate  it.  It  lay  in  his  eyes.  They  had  sud- 
denly grown  tired,  and  there  was  that  fear  in  them 
as  in  the  eyes  of  one  who  has  a  long  journey  before 
him  and  has  just  found  in  his  heart  the  doubt  that 
he  will  ever  reach  his  journey's  end.  His  eyes  were 
gray  but  now  they  were  the  gray  of  a  river  in  winter 
that  would  become  solid  ice  were  it  not  so  swift — 
the  gray  of  a  river  in  which  snow  has  melted  as  it 
tumbled  from  the  trees. 

"Do  you  see  anything  dignified  in  poverty?"  he 
asked  her  with  a  sudden  directness. 

Her  eyes  grew  puzzled  as  she  stared  before  her. 

"Dignified?     It's  such  a  funny  word,"  said  she. 

"Oh — all  right.  Well,  then,  do  you  see  any 
laughter  in  poverty — the  humor  of  it — the  fun  and 


298      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

the  adventure  of  your  wriggling  out  and  scraping 
through;  of  having  streets  with  mad  dogs  in  them 
and  being  compelled  to  walk  half  a  mile  out  of 
your  way  to  avoid  them  and  get  home?" 

"Mad' dogs?" 

"Yes— bills." 

"I  see — I  didn't  realize  what  you  meant." 

"Well,  do  you  see  any  fun,  any  adventure  in  that 
— do  you  see  anything  to  laugh  at  at  all?" 

"Not  to  laugh  at,  John — you  don't  mean  to 
laugh  at.  I'm  sure  I  could  stand  it  all  right  for 
a  bit.  But  then  I  believe  you're  going  to  get  on. 
You're  going  to  make  money.  You've  said  so  your- 
self. We  shouldn't  be  poor  for  long.  I  know  I 
shouldn't  whine  about  it,  but  I  don't  see  how  I  could 
laugh." 

It  was  then  John  began  walking  up  and  down 
the  room,  backwards  and  forwards  as  though  some- 
thing were  at  his  heels  in  pursuit  of  him. 

"Supposing  I  told  you  you  couldn't  get  through 
life  without  laughter?  Supposing  I  said  life  were 
a  long  journey,  if  you  saw  all  the  way  without  a 
turn  in  the  road,  and  that  laughter  was  the  water 
in  the  leather  bottle  slung  round  your  shoulder  to 
moisten  your  lips  when  they  were  parched  with 
thirst,  to  clear  your  eyes,  to  cool  your  heart  when 
it  felt  burning  and  dry.  Supposing  I  said,  if  you 
and  I  don't  set  out  with  laughter  in  our  hearts 
we  should  die?  Would  you  hesitate  then?  Would 
you  begin  to  believe  that  what  your  people  said 
was  right,  only  they  said  it  the  wrong  way?" 

She  did  not  answer.     Her  lips  quivered.     She 


Goldsmith's  Grave  299 

pulled  out  her  handkerchief  and  knowing  that  once 
she  began  to  cry  she  would  cry  till  her  heart  broke, 
she  put  her  handkerchief  back  again.  It  seemed 
she  had  come  of  a  sudden  upon  a  need  for  pride. 
What  she  had  wanted  from  John  was  help,  strength, 
courage  to  go  through  with  all,  which  despite  their 
cruelty,  and  injustice,  her  parents  had  shown  her 
to  be  the  most  difficult  moments  of  her  life.  He 
seemed  to  be  giving  her  none  of  these.  And  with 
all  he  said,  it  seemed  more  difficult  than  it  had  been 
before. 

It  was  not  only  what  he  was  saying,  but  the 
strange  distance  that  had  come  in  his  voice  as 
though  he  had  lost  sympathy  and  did  not  realize 
all  she  had  been  willing  to  face  for  his  sake.  For 
it  was  not  a  little.  The  losing  of  her  friends — well, 
perhaps  her  real  friends  might  still  wish  to  see  her, 
but  such  friends  were  few;  the  discomforts  which 
he  had  acknowledged  her  father  was  right  in  point- 
ing out,  these  were  all  sacrifices  he  seemed  to  have 
lost  sight  of,  yet  was  increasing  her  consciousness 
of  the  fact  that  she  was  making  them. 

For  it  was  not  as  though  they  were  new  to  her. 
That  day  when  they  went  to  the  Zoo,  she  had  be- 
lieved those  sacrifices  to  be  unmakable.  Then  love 
had  persuaded  her  to  courage  and  she  had  been 
prepared  to  face  anything  for  love.  It  was  love 
she  needed,  and  she  did  not  want  to  think  of  it  in 
any  light  but  that  of  the  very  brightest.  Had  she 
seen  inside  John's  mind  as  he  stood  outside  the 
prison  at  Holloway,  had  she  heard  his  laughter  at 
the  thought  that  the  marble  walls  of  the  Alcazar 


30O      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Restaurant  were  conceived  to  give  people  the  im- 
pression they  had  had  a  good  meal,  that  the  silk 
and  the  brocade  in  the  theaters  were  intended  to 
make  them  feel  comfortable  in  their  bodies  when 
their  minds  were  discomfited  by  a  foolish  play, 
had  she  realized  his  mind  then,  she  still  would 
have  been  unable  to  associate  its  ideas  with  this 
desire  in  her  heart  to  set  love  in  the  brightest  light 
in  order  to  make  it  seem  what  she  believed  of  it. 

Upon  a  pedestal  she  had  set  love,  as  most  girls 
do;  and  about  that  pedestal  she  had  built  a  bower 
of  roses  to  fence  it  off  from  life.  Love  was  a 
dream  world  to  her,  a  place  of  magic  happenings, 
of  fountains  playing  in  the  sun,  of  fairy  glens  and 
mid-summer  night's  ecstasy.  Love  was  a  prince  in 
armor  with  a  sword  forever  drawn  to  assail  the 
slightest  sadness  that  threatened  her.  She  could 
not  see  Love  in  an  ordinary  pair  of  trousers  that 
life  had  frayed,  carrying — only  on  rarest  occasions 
— an  umbrella  that  had  been  bought  for  half-a- 
crown  at  a  lost  property  sale. 

Had  not  John  written  himself: 

But  you  and  I  will  find  earth's  quiet  places 

Make  Life  a  woodland  freshet  where  the  mosses  grow. 

That  was  what  she  wanted  and,  in  wanting  it 
in  reality,  had  taken  it  for  its  beauty  as  literally 
as  her  father  had  done  for  its  folly. 

John  had  shown  her  love.  Why  then  was  he 
saying  all  this?  Why  was  he  not  keeping  love  be- 
fore her  eyes  to  give  her  courage  when  her  heart 
was  failing? 


Goldsmith's  Grave  301 

She  looked  down  on  the  ground  in  her  distress 
and  saw  John's  feet  as  he  stood  beside  her  and 
saw  the  frayed  ends  of  his  trousers.  As  her  eye 
traveled  up,  in  a  sudden  wonder  to  look  at  his 
face,  she  noticed  the  unlinked  cuffs  of  his  shirt 
sleeve.  And  then  his  face  when,  fight  as  she  would 
against  the  thought  of  it,  she  found  for  the  first 
time  in  all  the  times  they  had  met,  that  it  looked — 
poor.  It  was  beyond  all  power  of  her  understand- 
ing in  the  stress  of  those  moments,  to  realize  that 
poverty  was  pain.  She  did  not  know  he  was  suf- 
fering. She  could  only  think  how  much  she  was 
suffering  herself  at  this  fear  of  losing  love. 

So  came  Jill,  round  her  corner  of  life  into  the 
World  of  Wonderful  Reality,  and  the  first  glimpse 
of  it  set  a  chill  with  iron  fingers  close  about  her 
heart. 

When  she  gave  no  answer  to  his  questions,  John 
began  walking  the  room  again,  still  speaking  from 
his  distance,  still  hurting  her  with  every  word  he 
said  when,  in  those  moments,  his  heart  to  hers  had 
never  been  so  close. 

"Love,"  he  said,  almost  as  though  he  guessed 
what  had  been  passing  in  her  mind,  "love  is  won- 
der, as  well  as  beauty,  and  it  has  as  much  of  pain 
in  it  as  it  has  of  pleasure.  It  isn't  a  thing  that 
only  carries  people  through  the  happy  places. 
Much  more  is  it  a  spirit  that  bears  you  through 
the  dark  forests  and  the  silent  wilderness.  It's  a 
thing  to  face  life  with,  to  make  life  with,  more 
than  to  enjoy  life  with.  You  walk  with  it  through 
the  open  country,  but  it's  most  wonderful  of  all 


302      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

when  it  can  take  you  down  gutters  with  a  happy 
heart.  Love's  realized  in  some  human  being,  it's 
not  a  symbol,  a  thing  in  itself.  You  can  think  about 
love  and  dream  about  love  and  imagine  all  that  it 
is — but  nothing  do  you  know  of  love  at  all  till  it 
comes  to  you  in  the  mind  and  the  body  and  the 
soul  of  just  one  person  in  whom  you  recognize  it." 

Suddenly  he  came  up  to  her  side  and,  almost  to 
her  surprise,  dropped  on  his  knees  by  her  chair. 

"Do  you  love  me  like  that?"  he  asked  with  a 
quick  breath. 

She  tried  to  answer  him — yes — but  the  word,  un- 
qualified, would  not  come  alone. 

"Of  course  I  do,"  she  said  slowly,  "but  you're 
speaking  so  differently  to-day.  You've  never  talked 
like  this  before.  You've  always  made  love  and 
life  out  to  be  so  full  of  beauty.  That's  how — 
how  you've  made  me  believe  in  it  before  anything 
else.  Now  you  talk  of  it  in  gutters,  a  thing  of 
pain  as  much  as  pleasure.  Almost  you  make  me 
afraid  of  it — really  you  do.  And  we've  come  to 
no  decision.  I  thought  you  were  going  to  help  me 
to  put  away  the  impression  of  what  they  said  and 
you  haven't  helped  me  in  the  least.  I  feel  almost 
alone  now,  and  I've  got  to  go.  They'll  guess  I'm 
here  if  I  stay  any  longer.  I  must  go." 

She  rose  to  her  feet  and  as  she  turned  to  the 
door,  the  tears  gathered  the  fullness  of  their  weight 
and  tumbled  down  her  cheeks. 

"Which  way  are  you  going?"  he  asked. 

"Underground — from  Temple  Station." 


Goldsmith's  Grave  303 

He  said  he  would  walk  with  her  there  and  they 
went  down  the  stairs  together. 

All  down  Fetter  Lane,  they  never  spoke.  He 
felt  he  could  say  no  more  than  he  had  said.  She 
felt  she  could  hear  no  more. 

Turning  in  by  Inner  Temple  Gate,  they  walked 
down  towards  the  Church,  feeling  it  was  a  stream 
in  flood  that  bore  them  and  bore  them  on  to  the 
swirling  waters  of  the  whirlpool  of  life.  As  they 
passed  the  turning  of  Dr.  Johnson's  Buildings,  John 
stretched  out  his  hand  to  catch  a  branch,  just  for 
an  instant  to  stay  the  rush  of  their  passage,  in  the 
broil  of  the  waters. 

"Just  come  along  for  a  moment  to  Goldsmith's 
Grave,"  said  he  and,  wondering,  she  went  with  him. 

Beside  that  gray  grave  stone  that  lies  in  the 
gravel,  he  took  her  hand  and  made  her  eyes  look 
to  his. 

"You  think  I've  talked  differently  to-day,"  said 
he  quietly.  "Perhaps  I  have.  I've  talked  with 
more  love  in  my  heart  and  more  understanding  of 
it  than  ever  I've  had  in  my  life  before.  I'll  guard 
and  keep  you  through  everything — but  I  can't  keep 
you  out  of  the  gutters  or  the  dark  forests,  or  the 
sad  places  of  life.  If  ever  you  need  to  know  or  to 
remember  what  love  is,  come  back  here  to  Gold- 
smith's Grave  and  think  of  that.  No  man  can  keep 
you  out  of  the  sad  places — only  with  his  love,  he 
can  keep  you  through  everything  in  the  world. 
And  that's  what  I'm  here  for — if  you'll  believe  in 
me.  That's  more  than  half  of  what  love  is — be- 


304      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

lief.  The  woman  who  believes  the  best  of  her  man, 
gets  the  best  out  of  him.  If  you  believe  in  me,  love 
will  bring  us  through  the  meanest  streets." 

She  looked  as  though  her  heart  were  breaking 
and  then  they  turned  away. 

At  the  steps  down  to  the  Underground,  she  held 
his  hand  an  instant. 

"I  know  you  love  me  in  your  way,"  she  said,  and 
then  she  was  gone.  A  few  steps,  a  mingling  with 
a  mass  of  people  and  he  could  see  her  no  more. 


Chapter  XLVI:   An  Exercise  in  Mental 
Occupation 

THAT  morning's  shopping  in  Holborn,  no  less 
than  the  game  of  being  a  millionaire  in 
Bond  Street,  had  revived  memories  in 
Amber's  mind  she  found  herself  unable  to  set  at 
rest. 

Never  had  she  made  herself  so  busy  about  the 
house  in  Hogarth  Road.  A  sudden  conviction  that 
all  the  china  wanted  cleaning  seized  hold  upon  her, 
whereupon  she  found  basin,  warm  water  and  an  old 
nail-brush  and  set  to  work,  seated  on  the  floor  sur- 
rounded by  mountains  of  china,  the  skin  of  her 
fingers  wrinkling  more  and  more  like  a  washer- 
woman's, and  singing  her  whole  vast  repertoire  of 
snatches  till  her  mother  gazed  at  her  in  amazement. 

"You  seem  to  have  got  something  to  make  you 
full  of  life,"  said  she. 

"P'raps  I  have,"  said  Amber  and  scrubbed 
harder  than  ever  with  the  nail-brush  in  the  crevices. 

But  those  memories  were  not  to  be  hidden  away 
by  soap-lather,  the  voice  of  them  was  not  to  be 
drowned  by  her  singing.  And  the  key  that  ad- 
mitted them  back  again  into  her  heart  was  that  poem 
of  parting  she  had  found  on  John's  desk.  Again 
and  again  as  she  slammed  the  doors  of  recollection, 


306      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

some  demon  of  mischief  or  revenge  slipped  the  key 
into  the  lock,  turned  it  and  the  door  swung  open 
again. 

When  the  china  was  done,  she  cleaned  brass. 
When  that  was  done,  she  sat  down  and  played  the 
piano,  the  few  odd  things  she  knew.  The  execution 
of  music  was  not  a  thing  she  had  any  heart  for. 
Her  songs  were  not  music.  They  were  more  the 
— patter — of  her  mind.  But  playing  the  piano  in 
those  moments  was  something  to  do  and  when  that 
had  become  an  occupation  no  longer,  she  thrust  a 
hat  on  her  head  and  went  out. 

Involuntarily  she  found  herself  going  East.  She 
was  not  going  to  see  John.  That,  in  the  midst  of 
confusion,  was  the  one  clear  thing  in  her  mind.  She 
was  not  going  to  see  John.  To  begin  with  she  had 
not  so  much  as  twopence  for  a  bus  and  certainly 
•she  was  not  going  to  walk  all  that  way  to  Fetter 
Lane. 

If  there  was  one  thing  in  life  she  hated  more  than 
another,  it  was  making  a  fool  of  herself.  And  a 
fool  she  certainly  would  be  to  seek  John  out  when 
aiow  she  knew  so  well  how  much  his  heart  and  mind 
were  understood  and  satisfied  by  Jill. 

"He's  a  bit  of  a  poet,"  she  said  aloud  to  herself 
as  she  walked,  "and  Lord  knows,  I  could  never 
understand  a  poet.  They  must  be  a  bit  daft,  and  if 
there's  one  thing  I  am,  it  is  sane.  I  am  sane." 

Seeing  a  man  coming  towards  her,  she  dropped 
her  voice  to  silence  and  felt  annoyed  with  him  for 
his  interruption.  As  soon  as  he  had  passed,  she 
went  on  again. 


An  Exercise  in  Mental  Occupation   307 

"I  wonder  if  he's  really  worth  understanding?" 
she  said.  It  was  a  new  thought  and  had  never 
occurred  to  her  before.  "I  suppose  a  man  can 
write,  like  he  does,  without  having  much  in  him. 
I  wonder  if  what  he  writes  is  really  good.  But  why 
should  writing,  or  painting  or  anything,  make  a  man 
different  from  others?  I  can't  see  why  it  should. 
It's  only  because  he  sits  down  and  thinks  a  lot  of 
things  and  then  puts  them  on  paper.  He's  clever, 
of  course,  but  so  are  doctors  and  so  are  barristers 
and  people  like  that.  They  don't  go  about  wanting 
to  be  understood.  They  just  fall  in  love  in  the 
ordinary  sort  of  way  and  I  suppose  they've  got 
ideas  too,  but  they  don't  make  a  fuss  about  them. 
John  does  make  a  fuss  about  his  ideas  and  his 
understanding.  I  must  say  that.  He  talks  an 
awful  lot  and  then  of  course  he's  fool  enough  to 
do  what  he  says.  And  he  doesn't  always  do  that. 
But  thank  God!  he  can  laugh  when  he  likes.  He 
can  have  a  bit  of  fun  when  he  isn't  in  a  mood." 

She  stopped.  This  talking,  like  the  washing  of 
the  china  and  the  cleaning  of  the  brass,  was  leading 
to  no  good.  It  had  started  splendidly.  She  was 
beginning  to  believe  there  was  little  sentiment  left 
in  her  heart  about  John  at  all,  and  then  suddenly, 
open  swung  the  door  of  recollection  once  more,  and 
she  was  welcoming  memories  of  days  when  they 
had  laughed  together,  as  at  the  Rest  House  when 
they  had  told  them  they  ought  to  be — Friends. 

It  was  just  that  game  of  being  a  millionaire  that 
had  done  it.  It  was  when  he  was  Tike  that,  she 
thought  him  the  best  of  all  possible  companions  and 


308      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

companionship  was  a  good  thing  to  her.  Indeed, 
she  asked  for  little  else.  It  was  dearer  to  her  than 
all  the  greatest  passions  in  the  world. 

Cromwell  Road  had  turned  into  South  Kensing- 
ton, South  Kensington  had  led  in  the  Bromptor 
Road.  She  had  one  penny  and  she  took  a  'bus,  and 
in  those  days  with  a  penny  you  could  get  to  Charing 
Cross. 

The  Strand  is  an  amusing  thoroughfare.  It  al- 
ways was.  I  suppose  it  always  will  be.,  It  mixes 
the  amusements  and  the  business  of  Life  with  more 
ingredients  than  any  other  street  in  London.  You 
know  what  you  may  expect  in  almost  every  other 
neighborhood;  you  know  the  type  of  person  you 
are  likely  to  meet.  But  in  the  Strand  there  are 
people  making  towards  the  Law  Courts,  there  are 
theatrical  agents  in  the  by-streets  and  publishers 
grow  like  currents  on  a  bush.  It  is  the  approach 
to  Fleet  Street  and  the  newspaper  world  and  in 
the  midst  of  it  all  stands  St.  Mary-le-Strand,  part- 
ing the  tide  of  Commerce  and  cherishing  her  quiet 
memories  of  the  days  when  she  stood  in  the  peace 
and  reverence  of  green  fields. 

There  was  enough  attraction  for  anyone  and 
certainly  enough  to  bring  Amber  along  that  enticing 
thoroughfare.  She  walked  from  shop  window  to 
shop  window,  always  meaning  to  turn  back  but 
always  going  on.  And  when  she  came  in  sight  of 
the  Law  Courts  there  was  sudden  realization  for 
her  of  a  purpose  in  having  come  so  far.  She  would 
go  into  one  of  the  courts  and  listen  to  a  case. 

In  less  than  five  minutes,   she  found  herself  in 


An  Exercise  in  Mental  Occupation    309 

a  gallery  with  a  few  others,  listening  to  a  case 
concerning  the  right-of-way  across  a  brick  field. 
She  got  so  annoyed  at  the  thought  of  people  spend- 
ing hundreds  of  pounds  to  establish  the  right  to 
keep  the  public  from  a  narrow  path,  one  foot  wide, 
across  a  filthy  brick  field,  that  she  came  out  and 
why  she  did  so,  she  could  not  have  told,  but  when 
she  reached  the  street  again,  she  turned  to  the  left. 

The  Law  Courts — Chancery  Lane — Fetter  Lane. 
To  avoid  the  last,  she  turned  into  the  passage  and 
went  under  the  archway  that  leads  to  Clifford's 
Inn.  She  had  always  thought  of  looking  round 
Clifford's  Inn  and  now,  in  its  quiet  courts,  where 
she  might  have  expected  her  mind  to  find  repose, 
her  heart  began  an  importunate  thumping  once  she 
came  alone  with  her  thoughts.  The  Strand  had 
been  too  busy  to  let  her  think.  But  thoughts  now 
came  hot  and  swift  upon  her. 

She  wanted  to  go  and  see  John.  She  knew  now 
she  wanted  to  go  and  see  him.  But  she  wouldn't  go ! 
She  wouldn't  go!  That  she  was  determined  upon. 
Tramping  round  Clifford's  Inn  on  those  flatworn 
stones,  she  saw  a  gateway  and  made  directly  to- 
wards it.  She  would  not  go  and  see  him!  She 
would  go  straight  home  from  there  and,  passing 
hastily  through  an  iron  gate-way  to  wherever  it  led, 
she  found  herself  in  Fetter  Lane. 


Chapter   XLVII:     Jack    of   Clubs   and 
Queen  of  Hearts 

IT  is  no  good  pretending  there  is  anything  hap- 
hazard about  life.      Circumstance  may  have 
all  the  appearance  of  shuffling  the  cards,  but 
if  the  Jack  of  Clubs  is  to  lie  next  to  the  Queen 
of  Hearts,  the  hand  of  circumstance  may  shuffle  for 
a  week  of  Sundays  yet  there  will  he  be.     Circum- 
stance may  efface  the  sword  he  carries,  but  what- 
ever it  may  do,  while  it  sorts  the  cards  out  one 
by  one,  makes  not  a  ha'porth  of  difference  once  the 
affair  is  left  to  Chance  and  the  shuffling  has  begun. 

With  the  sternest  intentions  in  the  world,  Amber 
walked  out  of  that  gate,  determined  upon  going 
home  and  found  herself  in  Fetter  Lane.  Still  con- 
firmed in  her  resolution,  she  walked  up  the  Lane, 
carrying  out  her  purpose  of  returning  by  Holborn 
and  just  looking  up  at  his  windows  as  she  went  by. 

So  far,  so  good.  Up  to  this  moment,  Circum- 
stance had  had  the  control  of  everything.  She  was 
going  home.  She  did  no  more  than  look  at  those 
two  windows  on  the  first  floor  as  she  went  by.  Just 
the  snap  in  her  mind  had  passed  when  she  might 
have  gone  in  and  had  flogged  her  will  to  go  on 
and  then  the  shuffling  of  the  cards  gave  liberty  to 
the  sport  of  Chance. 

310 


Jack  of  Clubs  and  Queen  of  Hearts   311 

At  the  instant  of  going  by,  when,  so  far  as  Amber 
was  concerned,  the  matter  was  settled,  Mrs.  Rowse 
came  out  of  the  side  door  with  a  bag  on  her  arm 
to  do  her  bit  of  shopping. 

At  any  other  time,  she  might  have  just  nodded 
her  head  with  a  smile  and  gone  on.  At  any  other 
time  she  might  never  have  noticed  Amber  at  all. 
Now,  not  only  did  she  see  her,  she  nodded  her 
head  and  smiled  in  a  beckoning  way  and,  without  a 
moment's  consideration,  made  to  come  across  the 
road. 

Amber  stopped.  Could  she  have  done  other- 
wise? 

"I  don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  Mr.  Grey, 
Miss,"  she  began,  directly  she  had  reached  Amber's 
side.  "But  something's  the  matter  with  him.  I've 
been  workin'  for  'im  now  goin'  on  four  years  and 
a  married  woman  with  children  of  'er  own  gets 
fond  of  a  man — you  know  what  I  mean — if  Vs  a 
nice  gentleman  to  work  for.  And  Vs  always  been 
so  jolly.  If  you  asked  me  what  'e  did  most  of  'is 
day,  I'd  say  laughin'  and  teasin' — that's  what  I'd 
say.  Of  course,  that's  'ow  I  sees  'im,  me  doin'  a 
bit  o'  dustin'  and  gettin'  'is  tea  of  a  mornin'  and 
makin'  'is  bed." 

"Then  what's  the  matter  with  him  now?"  asked 
Amber,  despairing  at  last  of  ever  getting  the  facts 
of  the  case. 

"What's  the  matter?  He's  sittin'  *p  there  in  his 
room,  cryin'  'is  eyes  out.  Not  lettin*  me  see,  mind 
you.  'E  wouldn't  let  me  see  for  nothin'.  Pretends 
Vs  blowin'  'is  nose  and  all  that  sort  o'  nonsense. 


312      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

But  I  know  well  enough.  He's  'ad  a  letter  this 
mornin'  that's  upset  'im.  That's  what  it  is.  Gen- 
erally he  cuts  'is  letters  open  with  a  knife.  This 
one  'e  tore  open  with  'is  fingers.  I  don't  know 
what  it  is.  But  while  I  was  makin'  'is  bed  I  'card 
'im  in  the  sittin'  room.  He  must  V  been  cryin' 
then,  'cos  'e  made  that  noise  like  an  animal  you 
know — a  sort  of  moan  and  a  grunt  mixed,  like  men 
do  when  they're  cryin' — like  as  if  they'd  forgotten 
'ow  to  cry  and  was  ashamed  of  the  silly  mess  they 
was  makin'  of  it." 

That  was  enough  for  Amber.  She  was  across 
the  street  and  in  through  the  door  and  up  those 
uncarpeted  stairs  in  a  minute. 

She  knocked  at  the  door,  but  that  was  about  all 
she  did.  Hardly  waiting  to  hear  his  smothered 
growl  of— ^"come  in" — she  entered. 

There  he  was,  as  she  might  have  imagined  he 
would  be  from  Mrs.  Rowse's  description,  seated 
in  his  chair  staring  with  resentment  at  the  door  to 
see  who  ever  the  intruder  might  be.  When  he  saw 
it  was  Amber  he  shrank  into  himself  as  one  who 
is  fearful  of  being  found  out. 

She  came  straight  across  the  room  to  his  side. 
Down 'on  the  floor  by  the  chair  she  knelt,  just  as 
he  had  done  with  Jill  the  day  before  and  straight 
out,  without  a  moment's  pause,  she  asked  him  what 
was  the  matter. 

"How  do  you  know  there's  anything  the  matter?" 
he  growled  at  her. 

She  declared  she  was  no  fool.     She  lied  that  she 


Jack  of  Clubs  and  Queen  of  Hearts   313 

had  just  turned  in  by  accident  to  see  him.  She  added 
she  had  the  capacity  of  sight  as  much  as  anyone. 

"What  is  it?"  she  demanded,  for  if  he  could 
growl  at  her,  then  assuredly  she  could  bark  at  him. 

He  looked  her  straight  in  the  eyes  and  he  made 
the  face  he  always  put  on  when  he  was  prepared 
to  show  he  was  as  strong  as  a  lion  while  emotion 
was  making  him  feel  as  helpless  as  a  child  and  he 
said: 

"It's  all  over,  my  dear.  That's  what's  the  mat- 
ter. Not  love — I  don't  mean  that — but  all  the  rest 
* — it's  all  over.  Her  people  have  interfered — 
quite  rightly  too  I'm  sure.  They're  a  different 

class — they're  a "  He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"They've  interfered."  He  thought  it  best  to  stop 
there. 

But  it  was  not  sufficient  for  Amber. 

"Still  that  hasn't  anything  to  do  with  her,"  said 
she.  "She's  free.  She's  over  twenty-one,  isn't  she? 
What's  she  say  to  it  all?" 

He  just  handed  her  a  letter  and  in  a  glance 
Amber  read  it  through: 

"My  dear — believe  me  I  shall  always  Icve  you — but  I  sup- 
pose after  all — they're  right.  God  bless  you — Jill." 

She  handed  it  back  in  silence  and  looked  into  his 
face. 

He  smiled — and  then  he  laughed — and  then  he 
stared  and  stared  at  her  and  as  he  stared  the  tears 
swam  in  his  eyes,  and  flowing  over,  pelted  in  a 
torrent  down  his  cheeks. 


314      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"Now  you've  seen  a  man  make  an  ass  of  him- 
self," said  he  and  jumping  up  from  his  chair,  he 
strode  into  his  bedroom  and  shut  the  door. 

For  a  while  she  waited,  standing  in  the  middle 
of  the  room,  patiently,  helplessly.  Patient  at  last 
no  longer  and  chafing  against  that  helplessness,  she 
went  to  his  door  and  knocked. 

"Is  there  anything  I  can  do,  John?" 

He  came  at  once  to  the  door,  opened  it,  entered 
the  room  again  and  took  her  hand.  Something  had 
happened  to  him  in  there.  All  signs  of  tears  were 
gone.  There  was  a  wild  look  in  his  eyes,  but  his 
voice  was  steady  and  firm. 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  he  said.  "Love  doesn't  end 
like  that.  I  don't  believe  it.  They've  bullied  her 
into  writing  that  letter.  But  she  doesn't  think 
they're  right.  One  day  she'll  knock  on  that  door 
and  I  shall  hear  her  calling  to  come  in.  Love 
doesn't  end  like  that." 

He  pressed  her  hand  and  a  smile,  she  knew  he 
thought  to  be  full  of  real  conviction,  spread  over 
his  face.  She  answered  that  pressure  and  turned 
away.  There  was  more  sadness  in  that  convincingly 
happy  smile  than  she  could  bear  to  witness. 

"If  it  matters  at  all — if  you  care  to,"  she  said, 
"let  me  know  what  happens,"  and  she  hurried 
away. 


Chapter  XLVIII :   The  Sound  of  Pennies 

IT  is  the  little  issues  of  Life  that  bring  their 
fret  of  doubt.  When  the  issue  is  great 
enough,  doubt  has  no  place  or  meaning. 

Once  he  had  recovered  from  the  first  shock  of 
that  letter  from  Jill,  John  came  back  to  the  whole- 
hearted impulse  of  his  belief.  A  negative  condition 
of  doubt  was  impossible.  One  thing  he  must  think, 
or  the  other.  There  was  no  half-way  house.  Half 
the  way  was  a  distance,  of  the  length  of  which  his 
heart  knew  no  measure. 

They  had  coerced  her  into  writing  that  letter. 
In  that  prison  of  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace,  with 
its  pretentious  surroundings  of  wealth,  as  preten- 
tious as  the  castellated  turrets,  the  towers  and 
bastions  of  Holloway  jail,  they  had  tortured  her 
mind  to  send  that  message. 

It  was  not  that  he  believed  in  himself,  but  be- 
cause he  believed  in  love  and  in  no  half-hearted 
fashion,  that  he  made  so  sure  of  his  conviction. 

A  week  went  by,  a  week  of  silence  and,  with  his 
eyes  growing  harder  and  harder  as  they  looked 
out  upon  life  with  each  fresh  day,  he  held  to  the 


316      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

truth  love  had  brought  him.  She  cared  more  for 
love  than  the  possessions  and  expediencies  of  life. 
They  might  continue  to  torture  her,  but  in  the  end 
they  would  see  they  were  torturing  her  life  away 
and  they  would  have  to  give  in. 

All  that  time  Mrs.  Rowse  did  not  know  what 
to  make  of  him.  He  put  the  fear  of  God  into 
her,  she  said,  for  there  was  the  same  look  in  his 
eyes  as  when  she  felt  she  had  not  a  stitch  to  her 
back  and  it  was  distressing,  day  after  day,  to  come 
in  and  out  of  those  rooms  in  that  uncomfortable 
condition. 

At  the  end  of  the  week  she  was  on  the  point  of 
giving  him  notice.  Except  in  making  answer  to  a 
direct  question,  he  had  said  no  word  to  her  for 
seven  days. 

It  was  more  than  a  body  could  endure,  she  in- 
formed her  husband,  and  upon  being  told  what  a 
fool  she  was  to  take  any  notice  of  him  beyond 
doing  her  work,  she  decided  to  bear  it  for  another 
week. 

But  the  first  day  of  the  second  week,  there  was 
another  letter  opened  as  the  first  had  been  with  a 
slashing  finger.  Then  she  knew  that  something  had 
happened,  because  he  had  changed  into  his  best 
clothes  and  in  five  minutes  had  been  singing  at  the 
top  of  his  voice  there  in  the  bedroom. 

Jill  had  written,  saying:  "You  must  come  and 
see  me — here — father  wants  to  see  you,  too.  Come 
at  once — after  you  get  this." 

He  took  a  hansom  all  the  way  and  gave  the 
cabman  four  shillings. 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  317 

Of  course  it  would  come.  It  had  to  come.  He 
knew  it  would  come.  The  sound  of  the  old  horse's 
hoofs  as  they  rattled  along,  played  all  the  tunes  he 
had  in  his  head. 

He  was  shown  into  that  same  room  at  the  end 
of  the  hall.  This  time  there  was  but  one  person 
in  it.  It  was  Jill.  The  instant  the  door  had  closed, 
she  was  in  his  arms. 

What  she  said  was  almost  incoherent  to  him.  It 
was  love  in  all  the  confusion  of  words  with  which 
she  could  express  it.  She  begged  him  to  forgive 
her  for  that  letter  she  had  written  and  did  not 
wait  for  the  expression  of  forgiveness,  but  clung  to 
him  and  kissed. 

Suddenly  then  she  held  him  at  arm's  length  and 
said: 

"Do  you  know  what's  happened?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Poor  Mr.  Skipwith's  died  and  left  all  his  money 
to  me.  Think  of  it!  I'm  rich.  We  shall  never 
be  poor  again!" 

Before  he  could  answer;  before  he  could  disen- 
tangle one  thought  out  of  the  confusion  of  sensa- 
tions that  heaped  themselves  upon  him,  the  door 
had  opened  and  Mr.  Dealtry  had  entered. 

He  came  forward  with  a  certain  reserved  genial- 
ity. He  held  out  his  hand  as  though  opening  the 
preliminaries  of  an  interview  in  which,  were  he 
satisfied,  he  was  prepared  to  give  John  a  respon- 
sible post  in  a  vast  concern  to  which  a  really 
excellent  salary  was  attached. 

"I've  no  doubt  this  was  unexpected  for  you,  Mr. 


3l8      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

Grey,"  he  said,  "but  perhaps  Jill  has  told  you 
already." 

He  spoke  as  though  the  interview  which  had 
taken  place  between  them  in  that  very  room  had 
never  occurred.  Feeling  that  atmosphere  again,  it 
was  vibrating  in  John's  memory.  Mr.  Dealtry  ap- 
peared to  have  entirely  inhibited  it  from  his  mind. 

"Jill  has  just  told  me  she  has  been  left  some 
money,"  he  replied,  and  not  only  the  expression  on 
his  face  but  the  tone  of  his  voice  were  almost 
comical  in  their  bewilderment. 

"One  hundred  thousand  pounds,"  said  Mr.  Deal- 
try,  as  though  he  were  announcing  the  capital  funds 
of  that  vast  concern  in  which  it  was  his  intention 
to  offer  John  a  post  of  responsibility. 

"Yes,  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  we  calculate 
it  when  the  death  duties  are  paid.  Quite  a  nice  little 

sum.  My  poor  friend  Skipwith "  his  voice 

dropped  to  the  appropriate  tone.  It  was  like  an 
undertaker  removing  the  sad  tie  of  private  life  and 
putting  on  the  crepe  of  commerce.  "My  poor 
friend  Skipwith  died  very  suddenly.  I  hardly  real- 
ize it  myself  yet.  He  was  an  old  friend  of  mine — 
many  years'  standing — we  were  at  Eton  and  Oxford 
together — the  best  of  friends  and  it  affects  me  more 
deeply  than  I  like  to  say  when  I  find  this  expression 
of  his  regard  for  Jill  which  in  some  measure,  I  know, 
throws  light  upon  the  friendship  he  felt  for  me. 
However,  let's  put  that  aside  for  the  present — those 
are  my  own  private  feelings  and  expression  makes 
them  neither  deeper  nor  easier  to  bear." 

His  voice  changed. 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  319 

"We  sent  for  you,  Mr.  Grey,  because — well — to 
put  it  bluntly,  Jill  has  a  power  now  she  did  not 
possess  before,  to  demand  consideration." 

The  funeral  was  over.  Mr.  Skipwith  was  de- 
cently interred  in  the  cemetery  of  proper  considera- 
tion. The  crepe  of  commerce  could  be  put  aside. 
Almost  with  relief,  the  undertaker  donned  once 
more  the  red  tie  of  his  emphatic  satisfaction  with 
life. 

"Apart  from  all  silly  sentiment,  we  know  Jill  is 
in  love  with  you.  She's  told  us  so.  Indeed,  the 
fact  that  she  even  wished  to  marry  you  when  she 
had  this  excellent  offer  of  marriage  from  my  friend 
— you  know  he  had  asked  her  of  course — proves 
conclusively  how  earnest  her  affection  must  have 
been.  I  don't  want  to  talk  platitudes,  but  a  girl 
must  be  very — what  shall  I  say — overcome,  if  for 
the  sake  of  a  romantic  idea,  she  could  refuse  an 
excellent  fellow  and  five  thousand  a  year.  How- 
ever, fortune  has  not  deserted  her,  and  believing 
that  her  happiness  does  lie  with  you,  we  sent  for 
you  to  say  that  we  have  no  objection  now,  so  long 
as  you  will  adopt  just  a  little  different  standpoint  in 
your  views  of  life.  Won't  you  sit  down?" 

John  sat  down  and  Jill,  beside  him,  slipped  her 
hand  into  his. 

"I  want  to  say,  first  of  all,  that  I've  read  that 
poem  of  yours  again  and  in  a  different  light — for 
circumstance  does  change  the  lighting,  doesn't  it? 
I  much  better  appreciate  its  merits  now.  I'm  not 
given  to  over-praise,  Mr.  Grey,  but  in  the  last  few 
days — some  things  you  have  written  have  been  a 


320      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

help  to  me  in  this  bereavement.  I've  been  reading 
some  of  your  work,  some  that  Jill  had  in  her  book- 
shelves, and  I  find  a  lot  of,  shall  we  say,  feeling — 
genuine  feeling — in  them.  I  believe  you  will  get  on." 

He  paused.  To  have  said  this  of  any  man  was 
a  prophetic  pronouncement.  He  gave  the  words 
the  full  value  of  the  silence  that  followed  them,  and 
then  he  continued: 

"Novelists  now-a-days,"  he  said,  "unlike  they 
were  in  the  days  of  Johnson  and  Goldsmith — and — 
wasn't  there  a  man  called — Sterne?  Unlike  them, 
novelists  have  come  into  Society.  They  don't  have 
to  sit  on  the  doorstep  of  a  patron.  I've  met  novel- 
ists, writers,  men  like  yourself,  at  Stafford  House 
and  the  Lord  Mayor's  banquet.  Well — that's  get- 
ting on.  It's  not  the  sort  of  socialistic  stuff  you 
talked  when  you  were  here  before.  That,  I  want 
to  tell  you  frankly,  is  what  we're  afraid  of.  There 
are  still  writers  in  this  country  who,  metaphorically, 
have  a  sort  of  distaste  for  a  clean  shirt.  They  don't 
want  to  get  on.  They  don't  affect  the  clean  linen 
of  society.  Now  I  am  a  believer  in  the  social  at- 
mosphere. I  hold  that  as  one  enters  the  world, 
the  class  in  which  one  finds  oneself  constitutes  a  duty 
to  the  individual  to  keep  in  that  class." 

For  the  first  time  John  spoke. 

"You  don't  believe  in  bettering  yourself?"  he 
asked. 

"Bettering  oneself — why — certainly.  rA  good 
many  novelists  and  quite  a  lot  of  actors  have  been 
knighted.  Bettering  oneself?  Why,  of  course.  It 
gives  me  hope  to  hear  you  say  that.  Bettering  one- 


The  Sound  of  Pennies          321 

self,  certainly,  but  never  falling  into  a  lower  class. 
At  present,  living  where  you  do,  I  know  you  won't 
think  it  snobbish  of  me  to  say  that  your  environment 
is  scarcely  that  to  which  Jill  has  been  accustomed. 
She  has  lived  here  in  Prince  of  Wales's  Terrace  and, 
no  doubt  now  with  the  money  she  has,  will  be  able 
to  afford  a  still  better  address.  I  will  honestly 
admit,  Mr.  Grey,  that  even  when  Jill  knew  she 
was  coming  into  this  money,  I  did  not  favor  you 
at  all  as  her  husband.  Money  is  not  everything. 
It  can't  make  a  man  what  he  is  not.  But  when  I 
read  that  poem  of  yours  again  and,  as  I  have  told 
you,  some  of  the  books  you  have  written,  I  saw 
that  there  were  potentialities  in  your  work,  that 
you  had  something  in  you,  that  in  time,  with  the 
encouragement  of  a  successful  marriage,  you  might 
even  become  one  of  those  novelists  who  have  won  a 
knighthood  for  themselves.  Now-a-days,  I  know,  a 
knighthood  does  not  mean  much,  but  it  does  give  a 
distinction,  a  recognition  in  the  artistic  world  where 
I  believe,  so  far  as  the  herald's  office  goes,  all 
writers,  actors,  and  musicians  are  still  classed  as 
vagabonds.  That  of  course  is  ridiculous.  But  the 
old  laws  prevail.  You  mayn't  shoot  conies  in 
Regent  Street,  you  know.  Ha!  Ha!  Ha!  Didn't 
know  that  I  expect — did  you?  No — you  mayn't 
shoot  conies  in  Regent  Street!  Well — I  hope  I 
shall  never  be  in  such  need  of  a  meal  as  to  feel 
the  temptation  of  breaking  the  law." 

He  laughed  again  and  Jill  laughed.  Her  laugh 
grew  chill  as  she  stole  a  glance  at  John.  Mr. 
Dealtry  noticed  nothing.  He  had  never,  with  so 


322      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

delicate  a  subject  before  him,  spoken  better  in  his 
Jife.  He  was  anxious  to  continue. 

"I  am  sure  now,"  said  he,  "you  see  more  or  less 
what  I  am  aiming  at.  Candidly  you  frightened 
us,  my  wife  and  myself,  when  you  were  here  the 
other  day,  and  when  first  Jill  said  that  now  she 
had  money  of  her  own  and  could  marry  whom  she 
liked,  we  were  a  little  bit  afraid  until  she  assured  us 
she  was  certain  you  would  see  things  in  a  different 
light  when  there  was  plenty  of  money  for  you  to 
live  upon  in  comfort." 

"You  said  that,  Jill?"  asked  John  quietly. 

"Yes — yes.  I  said  I  knew  it  was  only  because 
you  had  to  put  up  with  poverty  that  you  talked 
about  the  dignity  and  the  humor  of  it.  I  know 
that's  how  you've  helped  yourself  to  get  through. 
I  know  you  like  pretty  things  and  comfortable  things 
as  well  as  anyone  and  that  now  we've  got  all  this 
money,  you'll — you'll  not  want  to  choose  your 
friends  amongst — well — the  sort  of  people  in  Fetter 
Lane." 

"Like  Charles  Henry  Quirk,"  said  John. 

"Yes — and  the — other  man." 

"Who,  might  I  ask,  is  Charles  Henry  Quirk?" 
inquired  Mr.  Dealtry  with  interest. 

"Charles  Henry  Quirk,"  replied  John,  "is  a 
clarionet-player.  He  plays  in  the  street  outside  my 
windows  every  Friday  morning." 

"A  friend  of  yours?"  repeated  Mr.  Dealtry,  not 
quite  sure  of  what  he  had  heard. 

"Yes,  a  friend  of  mine:  a  man  with  so  fine  a 
distinction  between  the  joy  of  his  work  and  the  re- 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  323 

numeration  for  it,  that  he  prefers  to  make  a  servant 
girl  cleaning  a  doorstep  sing  'Sally  in  our  Alley' 
without  any  profit  to  himself,  to  playing  outside  the 
houses  of  the  rich  where  they  pay  him  well  to  go 
into  the  next  street." 

Mr.  Dealtry  overcame  his  astonishment  with 
laughter.  Suddenly  he  threw  back  his  head  and 
laughed. 

"Ah,  copy,  Mr.  Grey!  Isn't  that  what  you  call 
it?  Copy!" 

"No,  I  said  friendship,"  replied  John.  "He 
plays  outside  my  window,  certainly — but  if  I  lived 
in  Park  instead  of  Fetter  Lane,  there  would  always 
be  mornings  when  I  should  ask  him  to  come  up- 
stairs. He  wouldn't  take  advantage  of  it." 

Mr.  Dealtry  dismissed  the  laughter  from  his  face. 

"Yes,"  he  interrupted,  "I'm  glad  you've  said  this. 
This  is  just  the  kind  of  thing  I  mean — just  the  kind 
of  thing  we're  afraid  of.  If  you  marry  my  daughter, 
Mr.  Grey,  you'll  have  to  drop  all  acquaintances  of 
that  character." 

"I  should,"  said  John.  "I  should  drop  them 
automatically.  In  the  places  where  people  live  with 
an  income  of  five  thousand  a  year,  the  Charles 
Henry  Quirks  never  make  an  appearance.  I'm  not 
dogmatic  about  it.  I  shouldn't  purposely  go  down 
to  Fetter  Lane  to  bring  Mr.  Quirk  back  to  dinner 
in  my  house  in  Kensington." 

"Your  house?  Well.  You  mean  Jill's  and 
yours." 

"Yes.     I  mean  ours." 

"Oh,  well,  that's  all  right.    Believe  me,  Mr.  Grey, 


324      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

I'm  being  intensely  sympathetic — very  tolerant — 
very  open-minded.  As  you  can  imagine,  with  this 
money,  my  daughter  could  make  an  excellent  match, 
yet  if  I  find  that  you  are  willing  to  adopt  our  views 
of  life,  I  can,  seeing  that  she  is  in  love  with  you, 
raise  no  objections — no  drastic  objections  to  her 
marrying  you." 

John  dropped  Jill's  hand  and  sat  up  in  his  chair. 

"What  exactly  do  you  mean  by  your  views  of 
life?  It  seems  to  me  vital  I  should  know  what 
they  are  before  I  adopt  them." 

Mr.  Dealtry  thrust  his  hands  deep  into  his 
pockets.  It  was  beginning  to  occur  to  him  that  this 
young  man  was  not  showing  the  spirit  of  apprecia- 
tion due  to  the  situation.  Fortune  had  never  come 
his  way  to  the  extent  in  which  it  was  being  flung 
at  this  young  man's  feet.  His  wife  had  not  brought 
him  five  thousand  a  year,  or  five  hundred.  The 
whole  affair  and  John's  attitude  into  the  bargain 
seemed  to  savor  to  him  of  the  domestic  servant  as 
she  had  become;  the  domestic  servant  who  wants 
first  to  know  whether  the  place  is  going  to  suit  her, 
not  she  the  place.  He  began  to  persuade  himself 
that  what  John  was  exhibiting  was  damned  im- 
pertinence. After  all  he  was  nothing  better  than 
an  artist.  His  was  not  a  situation  in  life  where  a 
man  could  pick  and  choose. 

"While  you're  inquiring  into  our  views  of  life," 
he  said  with  great  restraint,  "I  hope  you  won't 
overlook  the  fact  that  in  marrying  my  daughter, 
you  will  find  an  entrance  to  a  world  very  useful  to 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  325 

you  in  the  selling  of  your  books.  You  will  give 
dinner  parties  and  in  turn  be  entertained,  and  all 
amongst  a  class  of  people  essential  to  your  success. 
You  want  to  sell  your  books,  I'm  sure.  The  sale 
of  your  books,  when  it  goes  up,  must  be  a  cause  for 
considerable  gratification  in  your  mind.  All  this  I 
hope  you  won't  overlook  when  you  set  yourself  up 
to  ask  what  our  view  of  life  may  be." 

"No — I  won't  overlook  it,"  said  John  slowly. 
"How  could  I?  It's  partly  an  expression  of  your 
point  of  view.  It's  the  very  kind  of  thing  I'm  ask- 
ing for  information  about.  You  don't  really  expect 
me  to  adopt  your  outlook  on  life  without  question, 
do  you?" 

Jill  quietly  took  his  hand.  The  underlying  strain 
of  the  conversation  was  becoming  apparent,  more 
in  the  quietness  of  their  voices  than  in  what  they 
said. 

"John,"  she  said,  "father  only  means  that  if  you 
have  the  benefit  of  the  money  which  I'm  so  glad 
and  willing  that  you  should,  you  will  give  up  your 
present  habits  of  life — this  sort  of  Bohemianism. 
He  only  means  that  you  should  consider  appearances 
more.  You  may  not  like  society  people,  in  fact 
I  know  you  don't.  I've  often  heard  you  talk  about 
them.  But  when  we're  married,  it's  only  right  to 
me  that  you  should  appear  to  get  on  with  them. 
We  shall  have  to  entertain,  of  course.  It  would 
be  ridiculous  having  all  this  money  if  we  didn't. 
There's  no  need  for  people  to  think  we're  poor  when 
we're  not.  You  needn't  make  your  friends  amongst 


326      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

them.  Of  course,  I  couldn't  have  men  like  Mr. 
Quirk  to  the  house,  though  he's  very  genuine  and 
kind,  I'm  sure." 

"I  beg  pardon,  Jill,"  interrupted  Mr.  Dealtry, 
"but  you  haven't  met  this  man  who  plays  a  clarionet 
in  the  street?" 

She  was  taken  by  surprise.  Her  glance  at  John 
confessed  it. 

"Where  did  you  meet  him?" 

"At  lunch." 

"At  lunch!  Having  a  meal  with  the  man! 
Where  was  this  meal?" 

"Wrigglesworth's." 

"Wrigglesworth's  I     Where's  that?" 

John  intervened. 

"It's  a  little  eating-house  off  Holborn,"  said  he. 

"And  you  invited  my  daughter  to  meet  a  street 
musician  in  a  little  eating-house  off  Holborn?" 

"I  did." 

"Well,  Mr.  Grey,  I  think  we'd  better  come  to 
plain  speaking.  If  you're  going  to  marry  my 
daughter,  you'll  have  to  behave  like  a  gentleman. 
That's  what  all  this  conversation  amounts  to. 
You're  getting  a  fortune  with  her  which,  if  you'll 
excuse  me  saying  so  after  what  I've  just  heard, 
seems  to  be  a  slice  of  luck  you  scarcely  deserve. 
Some  people  are  born  lucky  and  I  expect  you  must 
be.  Here  you'll  have  a  wife  with  five  thousand 
a  year  and  such  a  home  as  I  dare  say  I'm  right  in 
saying  you  could  never  have  got  by  your  own  exer- 
tions. Without  a  stroke  of  work  for  it,  you'll  be 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  327 

able  to  go  about  with  everybody  thinking  you're  a 
rich  man." 

All  through  this  speech,  the  gray  look  of  winter 
had  been  coming  back  into  John's  eyes.  He  did 
not  respond  in  anger  to  the  suggestion  that  he  was 
not  a  gentleman.  It  needed,  he  felt,  a  gentleman 
to  make  that  suggestion  hurt.  What  had  happened 
was  that  between  them  both,  Mr.  Dealtry  by  what  he 
had  said,  Jill  as  much  by  her  silence,  they  had  killed 
his  belief.  Love  did  end  like  this  with  a  frayed 
and  ragged  edge — a  bedraggled  thing  one  could  not 
recognize  for  the  dainty  garment  it  once  had  been. 
Both  of  them,  they  were  dragging  it  through  the 
mud  before  his  eyes. 

"I  just  want  to  say  this,"  said  he  quietly.  "It's 
Jill  I've  wanted — not  the  advantages  she  could 
bring  me.  I  hate  her  money.  I  couldn't  give  her 
anything  in  return  for  that.  You've  made  it  so 
plain  to  me  that  it  stands  out  to  you  above  every- 
thing— it's  the  commanding  factor  in  this  discussion. 
We  began  with  it.  We  end  with  it.  One  hundred 
thousand  pounds.  Now  it's  yours,  you  believe  it 
can  buy  everything." 

He  turned  to  Jill. 

"You  believe  it  can  pay  for  love,  my  dear.  When 
you  wrote  that  letter  the  other  day,  I  never  thought 
it  came  from  your  heart.  I  believed  pressure  had 
been  brought  to  bear;  that  you'd  been  compelled  to 
write  it.  But  the  moment  you  told  me  you  had 
been  left  this  money  and  that  now  we  could  marry, 
that  was  the  first  moment  I  felt  love  turn  its  back." 

He  directed  his  eyes  again  to  Mr.  Dealtry. 


328      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"I've  no  doubt  all  this  sounds  the  sheerest  folly 
to  you,  sir.  Money  makes  your  life  easy.  Accord- 
ing to  you,  I  should  be  a  lucky  man  if  I  married 
a  wife  with  five  thousand  a  year  and,  as  you  say, 
I  ought  to  make  any  amount  of  sacrifices,  however 
sacred  to  me,  to  justify  and  pay  for  my  luck.  It's 
not  so  much  that  I  think  my  view  of  life  is  the 
only  view  or  that  it's  anything  wonderful  in  its  way, 
as  that  by  offering  me  money  for  it,  you've  made 
me  realize  how  valuable  it  is  to  me.  I've  got  an 
idea  about  love,  that  it's  beyond  a  price  and  in 
putting  a  price  on  it,  you  have  only  convinced  me 
the  more  how  much  beyond  a  price  it  is  to  me. 
As  I  stand  here  at  this  moment,  I  love  your 
daughter — but  I  love  her  with  my  nature,  not  yours. 
I  love  her  with  the  thoughts  that  are  worth  some- 
thing to  me — not  the  thoughts  that  are  worth  some- 
thing to  you.  I  can't  help  saying  this,  but  I  despise 
the  thoughts  and  ideas  that  mean  something  to  you, 
and  were  I  to  adopt  them  I  should  have  nothing 
left  to  love  her  with." 

"I  suppose  you  want  to  suggest,"  said  Mr.  Deal- 
try,  "that  you  can  only  love  her  in  poverty — not 
in  wealth,  and  that  being  the  case  I  don't  think  you 
can  wonder  at  my  considerable  doubt  of  your 
sanity." 

"Well — it  looks  as  if  I  would  suggest  that — 
doesn't  it?"  said  John.  "But  I  don't.  I  should 
have  worked  hard — terrifically  hard  to  make  a  good 
income  for  her  had  she  married  me  when  I  was 
poor.  What's  more,  I  should  have  done  it.  Love, 
when  you  have  it,  helps  you  to  win.  But  she 


The  Sound  of  Pennies  329 

wouldn't  marry  me  when  I  was  poor.  And  I  don't 
blame  her  for  that.  The  thing  that's  hurt  and 
deadened  nearly  all  the  feelings  I  have  is  that  she 
has  only  believed  in  money  to  buy  us  happiness.  I 
know  you  can't  buy  it.  That's  one  of  the  things 
I  know.  That's  one  of  the  things  I  believe  and  I 
shall  go  on  believing  it,  even  if  I  make  five  thou- 
sand a  year  myself." 

"Well — I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  listen  any 
more  to  this  sort  of  talk,"  interrupted  Mr.  Dealtry. 
"Mr.  Grey  doubts  your  affection  for  him,  Jill.  I 
should  have  thought  you  had  proved  it,  pretty 
plainly.  Do  you  want  to  say  anything  more?" 

John  turned,  looking  to  her  to  speak.  In  the  long 
silence  that  fell  about  them,  she  could  say  nothing. 
Mr.  Dealtry  crossed  the  room  and  opened  the  door 
and,  when  he  had  waited  beyond  the  expectant  beat- 
ing of  his  heart,  John  walked  out. 

Suddenly,  standing  there  then,  there  came  to 
Jill's  mind  the  remembrance  of  his  story  of  the 
black-cap  in  the  Zoo  and  she  realized  what  he  had 
meant  when  he  said  that  all  his  feelings  had  been 
hurt  and  deadened.  She  had  opened  the  window 
to  his  singing  and  she  had  thrown  down  her  pennies 
into  the  street. 

So  she  understood  it  must  be  the  end  because, 
as  she  watched  him  passing  down  the  length  of  the 
hall,  she  did  not  even  see  how  she  could  have  done 
anything  else. 

The  hall  door  closed  and  Mr.  Dealtry  turned  to 


33°      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"Hadn't  it  ever  occurred  to  you  before,  my  dear, 
that  that  young  man's  a  little  bit  mad?" 

And  just  as  before  in  that  atmosphere  they  had 
made  her  doubt  her  own  sanity,  so  there  leapt  upon 
her  then  a  doubt  of  John's. 


Chapter  XLIX :  The  Rest  House 

AIDER  waited  through  the  silence  of  a  whole 
week.  On  the  eighth  day,  she  could  bear  it 
no  longer.  Borrowing  twopence  from  her 
mother,  she  took  the  first  'bus  that  passed,  went 
down  to  Holborn,  and  walked  along  Fetter  Lane. 

It  was  morning.  Mrs.  Rowse  opened  the  door 
when  she  knocked.  The  whole  room  was  being 
done  out.  It  was  like  an  auction  sale.  The  furniture 
was  anyhow.  Staring  with  astonishment  into  the 
room,  Amber  realized  in  a  sub-conscious  moment 
how  the  atmosphere  of  a  place  depended  upon  its 
occupation. 

On  that  other  occasion,  she  had  just  seen  John 
leave  the  house.  The  room  had  still  been  warm 
with  the  atmosphere  of  his  presence.  Now,  al- 
though the  same  furniture  was  there,  the  same 
carpet,  the  same  curtains  on  the  windows,  the  spirit 
of  John  seemed  to  have  gone.  With  all  its  furniture 
the  room  was  empty. 

On  that  other  occasion,  when  she  felt  all  she  had 
been  unable  to  give  him,  an  utter  despair  had  fallen 
across  her  heart.  But  now  he  was  adrift.  With  the 
chill  and  emptiness  of  that  room  as  now  she  beheld 
it,  there  was  something  she  felt  in  herself  she  could 
give  wherever  he  was,  if  once  she  could  find  him. 

331' 


332      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

"Gone  away?"  said  she,  and  saying  it  did  not 
interrupt  her  thoughts. 

"Yes,  Miss — went  three  days  ago." 

"Where  to?" 

"Well — 'e's  left  'is  address  'ere — 'case  there  was 
letters.  Said  I  was  to  post  'em  on." 

She  fished  out  a  slip  of  paper  from  the  confusion 
on  his  desk  and  handed  it  to  Amber. 

"Jordan's  Rest  House — Nr.  Beaconsfield." 

She  handed  it  back  to  Mrs.  Rowse,  and  paused 
for  one  instant  wondering  whether  it  would  be  the 
proper  thing  to  borrow  five  shillings  from  John's 
woman.  A  sudden  recollection  of  what  Mrs.  Rowse 
knew  of  her  financial  transactions  induced  her  to 
think  better  of  it.  She  just  smiled — nodded  her 
head  and  said:  "I'll  write  there.  I  shall  remember 
it,"  and  was  gone. 

Payne  and  Welcome's  was  open.  She  was  wear- 
ing a  brooch,  not  another  thing  of  value  had  she 
about  her.  It  was  the  first  present  she  had  received 
from  John,  a  cheap  little  ornament.  Flight  of 
imagination  might  have  called  it  jewelry.  It  had 
been  pawned  before.  Any  day  of  the  week  it  was 
worth  five  shillings.  Whenever  she  put  it  away, 
it  was  with  no  sense  of  desecration;  rather  it  was 
a  warm  feeling  of  gratitude  to  the  donor,  as  though 
John  himself  had  slipped  five,  fat  shillings  into  her 
hand.  Receiving  them  over  the  pawn-office  counter, 
she  had  always  gone  out  into  the  street  with  a 
whistle  on  her  lips. 

She  took  it  out  of  her  blouse  as  she  walked  into 
Payne  &  Welcome's.  Five  shillings.  It  had  never 


The  Rest  House  333 

been  more,  but  indignantly  she  had  often  refused 
less. 

There  was  a  train  at  Great  Central  station  that 
brought  her  to  Beaconsfield  within  an  hour.  Then 
she  set  out  to  walk. 

For  some  reason  or  other,  all  the  way,  she  sang. 
There  was  no  conversation  in  an  audible  voice  now. 
Something  there  was  she  felt  now  for  her  to  do; 
not  as  before  when  there  was  everything  to  avoid. 

She  had  never  been  conscious  of  anything  she 
could  do  for  John  at  any  other  time.  It  had  been 
a  hap-hazard  affair,  the  companionship  they  had  had 
together.  The  whole  of  her  life,  indeed,  had  been 
like  a  lot  of  beads,  threaded  on  a  string — a  string 
of  chance.  That  day  she  had  come  to  him  in  Fetter 
Lane  and  he  had  told  her  about  his  love  for  Jill, 
the  string  had  snapped  and  since  then  the  beads 
had  been  lying  about  on  the  floor. 

It  seemed  to  her,  as  she  looked  back  on  it,  that 
ever  since,  with  that  sudden  realization  of  their 
insecurity,  she  had  been  on  her  knees  picking  them 
up  and  yet  had  nothing  on  which  to  re-thread  them. 

Now — suddenly — here  was  a  string.  She  had  no 
idea  what  sort  of  a  thread  it  was,  but  it  was  some- 
thing, a  purpose  on  which  to  hang  her  beads; 
something  definite  amongst  all  the  things  in  which 
she  had  been  inadequate,  that  she  could  do.  It  gave 
a  length  to  her  stride  as  she  walked  from  Beacons- 
field  station;  it  made  the  very  ground  feel  more 
solid  beneath  her  feet. 

And  then,  when  the  Rest  House  itself  came  in 
sight  from  the  bottom  of  that  short  turn  to  the  left; 


334      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

when  she  saw  the  old  Meeting-house,  settled  down 
there  in  the  keeping  of  the  beech  trees  and,  as  she 
passed  the  graves  of  the  Quakers  lying  so  restfully 
in  the  grass,  her  heart  began  a  sudden  beating. 

John  was  there.  In  the  stress  of  his  trouble, 
he  had  gone  there  and  the  utter  loneliness  of  him 
came  the  closer  to  her  consciousness  when  she 
thought  it  was  the  Rest  House  he  had  chosen  for 
retreat. 

He  was  hiding.  He  was  like  a  dog  with  a  sore 
paw.  He  was  lying  in  a  corner  out  of  the  light  and 
she  felt  she  could  see  him  nursing  it,  dumb  and 
unable  to  tell  any,  but  one  who  had  a  heart  to 
understand,  that  it  hurt. 

Almost  she  ran  up  the  hill.  Far  louder  and 
more  imperatively  than  she  meant  to,  she  knocked 
on  the  white  door.  So  imperatively  did  she  knock 
that  the  little  girl's  face  was  scared  when  the  open 
door  revealed  her  to  Amber. 

"Is  Mr.  Grey  in?"  she  asked. 

It  was  a  warm  afternoon.  The  chances  were 
that  he  was  out  somewhere  walking,  somewhere  in 
a  corner  out  of  the  light. 

Another  bound  her  heart  gave  when  the  little 
girl  said  she  had  seen  him  only  half  an  hour  ago, 
seated  in  the  sunken  wall-garden. 

"Can  I  go  round  this  way?"  asked  Amber. 

The  little  girl  nodded  her  head. 

He  was  still  there.  She  could  see  the  top  of 
his  head  as  he  sat  on  the  lower  level  by  the  side 
of  a  tiny  pool  that  is  sunk  in  the  middle  of  the 


The  Rest  House  335 

stone  slabs  where  the  saxifrage  and  the  clumps  of 
sweet  alyssum  grow. 

Until  she  had  come  down  the  steps,  he  did  not 
look  up.  Evidently  it  was  a  last  line  he  was  writ- 
ing. Nothing  short  of  a  thunderbolt  could  have 
distracted  him.  She  knew  that  bend  of  his  head. 
And  then  she  stood  in  silence,  waiting  till  he  had 
finished.  When  he  raised  his  head,  she  saw  that 
he  was  a  man,  grown  up.  Life  had  driven  the  child 
out  of  him  and  with  the  smile  of  welcome  he  gave 
her,  she  realized  that  Life  had  left  knowledge  in 
its  place.  She  came  and  sat  beside  him  on  the  warm 
stones.  He  folded  up  the  paper  and  looked  up  into 
her  face. 

"I  felt  you'd  come,"  said  he. 

She  nodded  her  head. 

"Mrs.  Rowse  told  you  I  was  down  here." 

"Yes." 

"How  did  you  manage  it?" 

"Pawned  your  brooch." 

He  smiled. 

"What  do  they  give  you  on  it?" 

"Five  shillings." 

He  nodded  his  head  as  though  he  recognized  the 
quality  of  the  commercial  transaction. 

There  was  a  long  silence  then.  He  picked  a 
bloom  of  thrift  from  a  tuft  at  his  side,  and  with 
the  stalk  began  to  help  a  water  spider  over  what 
he  imagined  was  its  job  on  the  surface  of  the  pool. 

"You've  been  writing,"  she  said  presently. 

"Yes." 

"What  have  you  done?" 


336      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

He  looked  up  straight  into  her  eyes  as  if  won- 
dering for  an  instant  would  she  understand.  Then 
he  handed  her  the  paper.  It  was  verse.  What  he 
most  wanted  to  write.  Verse — at  a  guinea  a  time. 

Whatever  company  I  take, 

Whatever  highway  I  am  shown, 
By  night-time  or  at  morning-break 

It  is  my  charge  to  walk  alone. 

Whatever  friend  stretch  out  his  hand, 

Whatever  love  the  bolt  unbars, 
I  wander  in  a  foreign  land 

Between  the  furrow  and  the  stars. 

Whatever  hands  shall  make  my  bed, 

Whatever  beck'ning  voices  cry, 
The  more  let  me  hold  up  my  head 

When  I  go  out  alone  to  die. 

So  Amber  found  John  in  his  corner,  nursing  the 
wound  that  Life  had  given  him. 

She  looked  up  from  the  paper  on  which  his  lines 
of  verse  were  scrawled  and  there  were  no  tears 
in  her  eyes.  Bright,  they  were,  with  a  glittering 
brightness,  as  though  a  frost  had  touched  them; 
but  there  came  no  tears  to  soften  or  obscure.  She 
knew,  as  he  stood  there,  he  was  a  child  in  mind 
no  longer.  She  knew  he  had  come  into  a  new  world 
and  that  light  in  her  eyes  was  a  bright,  hard  fear 
he  had  lost  the  wonder  and  the  joy  of  everything — 
a  fear  that  the  child  in  his  mind  which  was  gone 
had  taken  with  it  by  the  hand,  the  child  in  his  heart. 
It  was  a  fear  that  now  he  was  a  hard  and  bitter 
man. 


The  Rest  House  337 

She  held  out  her  hand  as  she  gave  the  verses 
back. 

"What  are  you  thinking,  John?"  she  asked. 

A  long,  long  while  he  paused  before  he  answered, 
but  there  was  that  sense  in  the  pause,  by  which  she 
knew  he  had  heard  her  question  and,  if  she  did 
not  speak  again,  would  answer  it. 

At  last  he  replied. - 

"I'm  thinking,"  said  he,  "I'm  thinking  how  plain 
and  certain  it  is  in  sudden  moments,  that  we  don't 
belong  to  this  world,  yet  that  all  our  efforts  while 
we  live  in  it  are  concentrated  in  chaining  ourselves 
down  to  it  in  a  tremulous  sort  of  fear  that  we're 
lost  if  we  don't  retain  our  hold.  I'm  thinking  how 
people  surround  themselves  with  possessions  which 
become  their  only  touch  with  the  world  they're 
afraid  to  leave.  I'm  thinking  how  the  representa- 
tion rather  than  the  essence  is  the  secret  link  we 
set  in  the  chain;  how  we  buy  all  that's  beautiful  in 
life  because  we  haven't  the  courage  just  to  realize 
that  it's  not  our  own,  but  belongs  to — well,  God,  if 
you  like.  We're  afraid  to  be  alone.  That's  what  it 
amounts  to.  And  that  would  be  all  right,  were 
it  not  that,  in  the  essential  and  ultimate  scheme 
of  things,  we  were  meant  to  be  alone.  Even  lovers 
are  meant  to  be  alone.  Only  in  a  plan  of  Nature's 
do  they  seem  to  come  together  and  then,  often,  the 
nearer  they  are  together  in  actual  contact,  the 
further  they  are  apart.  Lovers  are  closest  perhaps 
of  all  when  Death  separates  their  bodies.  Perhaps 
that's  why  lovers  are  so  often  glad  to  die.  It's 
this  world  that  separates  lovers — this  world  and 


33$      World  of  Wonderful  Reality 

all  the  countless  tangible  representations  and  ap- 
pearances that  come  between  them.  Once  you  love, 
I  believe  nothing  can  part  you.  Death  is  a  link, 
not  a  severance.  If  one  dies,  the  other  is  nearer 
than  he  was  before.  If  they  both  die — I  believe 
they  are  so  close  to  each  other  then,  as  that  scarcely 
the  hand  of  God  could  come  between  them. 

"That's  what  I'm  thinking.  Perhaps  it  sounds  very 
depressing;  not  the  sort  of  talk  to  give  to  the  people 
who  are  hanging  on  to  the  world  for  their  realiza- 
tion of  life.  But  I'm  alone  and  I  want  courage, 
and  I  believe  courage  is  only  found  in  looking 
straight  and  not  out  of  the  corners  of  your  eyes. 
I  may  say  very  different  things  in  a  few  years'  time. 
But  I'm  saying  what  I  know  now.  I  may  say,  what 
I  once  remember  saying  to  Jill,  that  the  whole 
world  is  a  sort  of  city  of  beautiful  nonsense.  All 
I  can  say  now  is,  that  it  is  a  world  and  full  of 
the  most  wonderful  reality,  only  the  reality  is  not 
in  things  that  happen,  or  in  things  we  possess.  It's 
in  our  hearts — or  it's  nowhere." 

He  looked  up  at  her  and  a  twisted  smile  screwed 
up  his  lips  and  his  eyes. 

"Let's  go  in  and  have  some  lunch,"  said  he. 
"Let's  go  in  and  tell  them  that  we're — Friends. 
And  let's  tell  them  that  friends  can  be  together  when 
lover's  can't." 


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